' i 



^^-/. £iT\ v£- i 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



HEADLANDS OF FAITH: 



% Stries of §isstrtations 



CARDINAL TKUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY. 



BY T II E 

REV. JOSEPH CROSS, D.D. 



EDITED BY THOMAS 0. SUMMERS, D.D. 



/^'^ 




Naspille, Cenn*: 



PUBLISHED BY E. STEVENSON & J. E. EVANS, AGENTS, 

FOR THE METUODIST El'ISCOl'AL CUUIICH, SOUTU. 

185G. tr- 






Eutei'ed, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by 

STEVENSON AND EVANS, Agents, 

In tlie Oifice of the Clerk of the District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. 



STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY A. A. STITT, 
SOUTHERN METHODIST PUBLISHING HOUSE, NASHVILLE, TENN. 



Contents 



PAQB 
PREFACE V 

I. — The Supreme Existence 7 

II. — The Doctrine of the Trinity 23 

III. — Jehovah Incomparable 41 

IV. — Divine Compassion 58 

V. — The Word Incarnate 78 

VI. — The Mysterious Agony 95 

VII. — The Great Substitution 115 

VIII.— The Symbolic Evangel 132 

IX. — The Empty Sepulchre 142 

X. — The Return to Heaven 156 

XI. — The Perpetual Advocate 180 

XII. — The Heavenly Paraclete 196 

XIII. — Angelic Agency 212 

XIV.— TiTE Human Heart 232 

XV. — Innate Depravity 249 

XVI. — Salvation Conditional 268 

XVII.— The Sonship op Believers 286 

XVIII. — The Rejected Redeemer 298 

XIX. — The Doom of the Sinner 317 



(iii) 



"^xthtt 



The aim of this volume is to develop, in a 
popular manner, "the truth as it is in Jesus;" 
uniting, in due proportion, the credenda and the 
agenda of Christianity. The papers of which it is 
composed had their origin, chiefly, in the author's 
earlier theological studies and pulpit preparations. 
A few of them are of later production. Two have 
been published before, but through a medium of 
limited circulation. The work is now given to the 
world, in humble reliance upon the Divine blessing 
for its success. It is an unambitious book, free 
from egotism and from pedantry, and simple alike 
in logic and in rhetoric. It is hoped that the 
volume contains nothing contrary to sound doc- 
trine, or unfriendly to evangelical piety. If the 
author dogmatizes, it is only where there is no 
room for doubting. If he " contends earnestly for 
the faith once delivered to the saints," it is in 

(V) 



VI PREFACE. 

kindness and charity — ^not for tlie glory of con- 
quest, but for the honor of the truth. If he has 
succeeded in illustrating the attributes and govern- 
ment of God — ^if he has made plainer to the in- 
quiring soul the way of salvation through a cruci- 
fied Eedeemer — ^if he has contributed to render 
the cross of Christ more precious, and the duties 
of religion more attractive, to any of his readers — 
if he has shed one ray of light upon the dark path 
of a weary and sorrowful pilgrimage, or mingled 
one drop of comfort in the wormwood cup which 
so many of his brethren are called to drink — he 
has accomplished his object, and secured his 
reward. J. C. 

Charleston, S. C, May 15, 1856. 



HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 



I.— THE SUPREME EXISTENCE. 

The doctrine of a Supreme First Cause and Sole Governor 
of the universe lies at the foundation of all religion. He 
who denies it has no religion. " Without Grod/^ he is equally 
"without hope in the world," an orphan in a fatherless uni- 
verse, whose only consolation lies in his boasted fraternity 
with the worm that perisheth. It shall be our business to 
exhibit some evidence of the Supreme Existence. 

I. Our first argument is drawn from the general con- 
sent OF MANKIND. 

<^ There is one Grod." This great truth, and beginning of 
truths, has been an article of common, almost universal be- 
lief, from the infancy of the world. There never was a 
nation of atheists, and always and everywhere the individual 
atheist has been regarded as a monster. What does this 
prove ? That the common sense of mankind, with a little 
reflection, leads to the idea of a God ; that the fact is obvious, 
or the thought natural, to the human mind. Thus general 
consent furnishes a strong probability of the Supreme 
Existence. 

But most nations, it may be urged;, believe in many 

(7) 



8 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

gods, instead of one. This, however, weighs nothing against 
the argument. Polytheists do not reject the truth to em- 
brace an error : only hold an error in connection with the 
truth. They believe in many subordinate gods ; but they do 
not repudiate the faith in One Supreme Grod. The faith in 
One Supreme God has been general, in all nations, in all ages. 

How does this happen ? It must be either deduced from 
evidence, or derived from tradition, or impressed by some 
superior power upon the human soul. If deduced from evi- 
dence, that evidence must be sufficient to warrant the deduc- 
tion, and it is highly irrational to reject the doctrine. If 
derived from tradition, that tradition must have had an 
origin, and that origin may have been an immediate revela- 
tion of God to man. If impressed by some superior power 
upon the human soul, that power must be capable of pro- 
ducing the same thought in millions of minds, simultaneously 
in all lands, and continuously through all time ; and what can 
that power be, less than an omnipresent and almighty being 
— God himself, with his own finger, writing his name upon 
the universal heart of man ? 

Thus, on any hypothesis, the general consent of man- 
kind supplies a very strong presumption of the Supreme 
Existence. This presumption is supported by other and 
ampler evidence. 

II. Our second argument is drawn from the moral con- 
stitution OP the human soul. 

I am conscious of moral character, and of moral obligation. 
These imply moral law and moral government. Law sup- 
poses a lawgiver : government, a governor. If, then, I 
possess a moral nature, I must have a moral ruler. Who is 
this moral ruler, but God ? 

Again : I carry within me a moral principle which I call 
conscience — an inward monitor, which speaks, "as one 



THE SUPREME EXISTENCE. 9 

having authority/' of the good or ill of my conduct. Its 
warnings and reproofs reverberate through the depths of my 
soul, and I tremble as before a stern judicial tribunal. This 
internal sense of right and wrong is the standard by which I 
try myself, acquit or condemn myself, independently of all 
human opinions. Whence comes it? What is it? Can 
there be any phenomenon, in psychology any more than in 
physics, without a cause ? Is it a law written in my heart ? 
then, who is the lawgiver? Is it a government established 
in my soul? then, who is the governer? Is it a tribunal 
erected in my consciousness ? then, who is the judge ? What 
is my conscience, but my nature's announcement of a God ? 

Once more : I am happy in the exercise of virtuous affec- 
tions : I am unhappy in the indulgence of vicious ones. I 
speak not now of the satisfaction or the remorse which fol- 
lows; for these are the sanctions with which conscience 
enforces her dictates, and they constitute an integral part of 
her testimony for God. But I speak of a present pleasure, 
distinct from the retrospective complacency; and of a pre- 
sent pain, distinct from the retrospective self-reproach. There 
is an immediate sweetness in the exercise of a benevolent 
feeling, and an immediate bitterness in the indulgence of a 
malevolent one. The same is true of all other virtues and 
vices. It is not the mere consciousness of integrity and 
honor which constitutes the happiness, nor the mere sense of 
self-degradation and demerit which constitutes the unhappi- 
ness 'y but there is in the virtuous feeling or action itself an 
inward and heavenly satisfaction, and in the vicious feeling 
or action a painful want of harmony with all that is pure 
and good. So it is with reference to the practice of tem- 
perance and sobriety, on the one hand ; and the ignoble sub- 
jection of soul and body to a tyrannical appetite, on the other. 
If I wield a mastery over all my inferior tendencies, I enjoy 
an unspeakable divine serenity; if I yield myself to the 
1* 



10 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

anarchy of my evil passions, I am like the troubled sea that 
cannot rest. In the tranquil felicity of the good affections, I 
possess a present reward : in the turbulent disorder of the 
bad affections, I experience a present vengeance. What is 
the inference ? That I am under the moral control of a 
being who loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity, and who 
makes my own interior consciousness notify me perpetually 
of his presence and his preference. Who is this being but 
God? 

Thus, without any other argument than that furnished by 
my own moral constitution, I am convinced of the existence 
of a Supreme Moral Kuler, to whom I am accountable for my 
conduct. This doctrine is a dictate of my moral nature, of 
which I find it difficult — even impossible — to divest myself. 
Other men possess the same consciousness : it is equally a dic- 
tate of their moral nature. Therefore, if my moral nature has 
not deceived me — if a sentiment, so general and ineradicable 
that it appears to be interwoven with the very texture of our 
being, has not led us all astray — there must be a moral law- 
giver, governor, and judge — publishing his statutes, assert- 
ing his dominion, erecting his tribunal, in man's interior 
nature; and if man existed alone, as a pure spirituality, 
without this solid earth and these surrounding heavens to 
teach him, his own soul, as an oracle, would give forth dis- 
tinct and authoritative announcements of a God; and per- 
haps, when properly considered, all your academic demonstra- 
tions, d priori and d posteriorij are less weighty and 
convincing than these inward notices of a Supreme Ruler, 
who is of all virtue the patron, and of all vice the avenger. 

III. Our third argument is drawn from the existence of 

THE UNIVERSE, AND ITS MANIFEST INDICATIONS OF DESIGN. 

"The invisible things of him, from the creation of the 
world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that 



THE SUPREME EXISTENCE. 11 

are made — even his eternal power and Godhead/' So wrote 
the apostle to the Romans ; so, substantially, he preached to 
the Athenians ; and so we may reason with the speculative 
atheist; and perhaps, with the great mass of minds, the 
physical argument may carry more weight than either the 
historical or the psychological. 

I know that I exist, and that my existence had a beginning. 
I know that I did not originate my own existence, but am 
descended from a race similar to myself. This race is com- 
posed of a series of individuals : a series implies a first ; 
therefore there must have been a first man. How did this 
first man originate ? By his own agency, or by some other 
agency ? Certainly not by his own, for then he must have 
acted before he existed. And if not his own creator, he is 
certainly the creature of another, and that other is God. 

I see a universe of existences around me. All must have 
had a commencement : all must have had a cause. What 
was that cause ? Evidently not their own agency. Causation 
implies action : action supposes existence ; and to say that a 
thing acted before it existed, is in efiect to say that it existed 
and did not exist at the same time. Further : If the beings 
which I behold around me acted before they existed, so as to 
produce their own existence, why may they not have acted 
before they existed to produce other existences ? and if they 
acted one moment before they existed, why may they not 
have acted a thousand centuries before; or be acting now, 
and not exist for millions of ages to come ; or continue to 
act for ever, and never exist at all ? Self-origination is the 
greatest of all absurdities. Every thing that is not eternal 
must have had a cause. What is that cause, but the Uncre- 
ated Eternal ? 

But it is chiefly in the evidence of design, exhibited in 
the adaptation of means to ends, indicating the operation of 
vast intelligence and wondrous wisdom, that the universe 



12 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

"holds forth to palpable observation the insignia of its origin." 
If the construction of a house suggests the idea of an archi- 
tect — if the mechanism of a watch argues the agency of an arti- 
ficer — because they display design, adaptation, and utility ; — 
much more does the universe, with its infinite variety of parts 
and uses, with its countless exhibitions of orderly and ben- 
eficial collocation, speak the master mind of a great and in- 
telligent designer. Why are the eyelashes placed just where 
they should be, to protect that most delicate organ ? Why 
are the nails fixed precisely where they are needful, instead 
of protruding as excrescences on other parts of the body? 
Why are the fingers and thumbs located upon the hand 
in the only mutual relations which could possibly answer the 
purposes of grasping and holding? Why are the cutters 
and grinders so arranged in the mouth, that their order could 
not be reversed without rendering them comparatively useless, 
and seriously embarra'ssing the process of mastication ? We 
might multiply indefinitely these demands. There are in- 
numerable collocations, dispositions, adaptations, observable 
among the teeming objects around us — organic and inor- 
ganic — celestial and terrestrial — animal and vegetable — mental 
and physical — all of which are of incalculable utility, all of 
which are indispensable to human comfort, many of which 
are essential even to life, and none of which could ever have 
occurred without the agency of an intelligent cause. From 
the simplest ascertained laws and relations of the mighty orbs 
above, to the most complex and inscrutable connections and 
dependences known to obtain among the manifold parts and 
multiplied functions of humbler life below, behold we not all 
nature instinct with the mind of a great designer — teeming 
and alive with evidences of a Divine Originator? 

But the atheist imagines the universe, with all its com- 
plicated and wondrous machinery, with all its relations of 
adaptation and utility, to exist in an infinite series of events, 



THE SUPREME EXISTENCE. 13 

without an origin and without a cause. But an infinite series 
is an infinite absurdity. Every dependent event supposes an 
independent cause, either immediate or remote. Can you 
conceive of a suspended chain without an absolute and pri- 
mary support ? Impossible. Whatever the number of de- 
pendent links, there must be, above all, an independent 
support. Equally inconceivable is an infinite series of de- 
pendent events. The multiplication of the events does not 
help the difficulty. However great the number — though 
beyond all imaginable number — there must be a first, and 
that first must be connected with an Eternal Cause. 

The present generation of animals and vegetables, the 
atheist tells us, is the product of a preceding generation, and 
that of another, and so on to infinity. But suppose we trace 
the series back through a thousand millions of generations, 
what does it amount to, except the removal of the difficulty 
farther into the past ? There is no solution, no satisfaction, 
no resting-place for the mind. Carry up the succession 
as far as you please — as far as the toiling calculation of a 
thousand years, multiplied by all their included moments, 
can bear you — but you shall find no point on which to pause, 
till you come to a cause which is itself uncaused and eternal. 

Driven from this vagary, the atheist admits that all things 
had a beginning; but ascribes that beginning to chance, as 
if chance were a causative agency. But if chance produced 
all things at the first, why does it not continue to produce ? 
If chance produced the primary generation of plants, trees, 
beasts, birds, and men, why has it never produced another ? 
How happened it to do what it could not repeat ? Why are 
all things in nature now propagated in regular and established 
methods ? AVhy is there not a single exception, within all 
the range of our knowledge ? If chance produced the human 
eye, why not a telescope ? If chance produced the solar 
system, why not a planetarium ? If chance produced the 



14 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

stellar universe, why not a temple, a steamship, or a spinning- 
wheel ? 

But we must attach definite ideas to terms. What, then, 
is this chancej to which the origin of all things is referred ? 
It is either nothing or something. If nothing, how could 
nothing produce something — produce every thing ? If some- 
thing, and something adequate to the effects ascribed to it, 
then the doctrine of causality must be admitted, and chance 
becomes but another name for God. 

But chance is neither a cause, nor the negation of a cause. 
When we say an event happens by chance, we mean not that 
a cause is wanting, but that the cause is unknown. We cast 
up a coin, and say that its falling with this or that side up is 
by chance. We do not mean that the result is without a 
cause. We know that It depends upon the impulse which 
the coin receives from the hand ; its position and direction 
when it begins to descend; and the uniformity or diversity, 
stillness or motion, of the medium through which it passes. 
There is no event without its cause in the whole series — no 
uncertainty, except what arises from our ignorance ; and the 
only reason why the result cannot be foreseen, is simply that 
we are unable to calculate the influence of the combined 
causes which originate and regulate the motion. 

Two men buy lottery tickets : one draws a prize, and the 
other a blank. This is chance; yet every thing in the 
operation is perfectly mechanical, and every event has an 
adequate cause. With precisely the same association of 
causes, precisely the same results would be realized a thou- 
sand times in succession ; and but for our ignorance of the 
various agencies and influences uniting to produce the effect, 
the success or failure of a thousand successive adventures 
might be infallibly foretold. 

Two ships, sailing at the same time from different Euro- 
pean ports, arrive at once in your harbor. This too is 



THE SUPREME EXISTENCE. 15 

chance; but we can easily account for tlie coincidence. 
Either the distances were equal, and the vessels sailed with 
precisely the same speed; or the distances were unequal, and 
the speed of one vessel exceeded that of the other exactly in 
the same proportion. In either case, they must infallibly 
reach their destination together ; and the result is said to be 
by chance, only because the comparative distance of the two 
ports, and the comparative speed of the two vessels, are un- 
known to us. 

Thus, when we attribute an event to chance, we mean 
simply that we are unacquainted with the agency or the 
manner of its production. This is the common acceptation 
of the term. Now, if this is the meaning of the atheist — 
if he intends t<) say that he does not understand the origin 
of the universe — that the agency and the manner of its 
creation are to him and to all men inscrutable and incompre- 
hensible — so far there is no ground of controversy, no incom- 
patibility of opinion. But if by chance he means something 
else — if he uses the word in a sense different from its 
ordinary signification — then he is bound to give us a precise 
definition, to tell us distinctly what new and unheard-of 
meaning he attaches to the term ; and till he does this, his 
theory is unworthy of our notice — cannot be refuted, because 
it cannot be apprehended — cannot be controverted, because it 
cannot be understood. 

Forced to abandon this ground, the atheist seeks refuge 
in another vagary, equally unsatisfactory and absurd — ascribes 
all things to the laws of nature. But what are the laws of 
nature ? The regular and established order of sequence in 
which things proceed in the natural world — the invariable 
method which obtains in all the known phenomena of the 
universe. But these laws must not be confounded with the 
cause in which the events originate. It is not the laws that 
produce the effects, but some power acting agreeably to the 



16 HEADLANDS OF FAITH, 

laws. It is not the law that punishes the criminal, but the 
officer acting according to the law. The cases are parallel. 
The laws of nature suppose a Lord of nature, in whose will 
they originate, and of whose procedure they constitute the 
ordinary and established method. There can be no creation 
without motion, and no motion without power; that power 
must reside in an agent, and that agent must be either 
created or uncreated ; if created, his creator may be eternal, 
and if uncreated, he must be himself eternal; so that the 
atheist finds himself shut up to the necessity of admitting a 
cause who is uncaused — a producer who is unproduced — an 
agent without an original — a being without a beginning. 

" But hold !'' cries he : '^Are there not certain appetences, 
affections, or tendencies in matter, which might be found 
sufficient, could we thoroughly understand them, to account 
for all the various phenomena observable in earth and heaven ? 
Take, for instance, the process of crystallization. Here is a 
fluid of certain ingredients, in which particles are found 
moving in all directions to a particular point, and there 
uniting in admirable order, forming a solid and regular body, 
with sides and angles well defined; and you may repeat 
the experiment, with exactly the same result, a thousand 
times in succession. Is not this a specimen of the inherent 
power of matter; and supposing matter already existent — 
existent from eternity — may not the same laws, operating on 
a larger scale, have produced the beautiful collocations and 
harmonious movements of universal nature ?" 

Avast ! Matter has no more faculty of self-motion than of 
self-creation. It is contrary to all human experience. Who 
ever saw a rock or a tree transport itself from one locality to 
another? What mountain ever walked the continent, or 
leaped into the ocean ? Yet, if a solitary particle of matter 
could move itself from the side of a glass vessel to the centre, 
why could not a mountaiu, which is only an assemblage of 



THE SUPREME EXISTENCE. 17 

particles, move itself to another hemispliere, or to another 
planet ? 

The self-moving power of matter is utterly inconceivable. 
Our very idea of motion implies a moving agent, distinct 
from the subject moved. In the motion of my arm, is it the 
arm that moves itself, or I that move it? Evidently, the 
latter. The mind is the motor : the muscle, only the instru- 
ment. The motor must feel desire, and exercise volition — 
qualities which no sane mind can ascribe to matter. When 
particles unite to form a crystal or a plant, they are not so 
many independent agents, actuated by an affection for each 
other; but mere passive subjects, acted upon by some 
external force, as really as the wheel is turned by the water, 
or the leaf wafted by the wind. Physical attraction and 
repulsion, combination and dissolution, accretion and decay — 
what are they, but the direct operation of a superior power 
upon matter, in certain uniform methods, which we call the 
laws of nature ? and to ascribe to these laws all the pheno- 
mena^ — the vast and the minute — which we behold about 
us — w£at is it, but to suppose the universe the effect of 
causes, which are themselves the effects of another cause, and 
that the Almighty and Eternal ? 

The phenomena of nature include the phenomena of mind. 
There is an inner world, as well as an outer world ; and the 
inner is more wonderful than the outer. Suppose we admit 
that all the physical forms and appearances with which we 
are familiar result merely from the laws of matter ; but how 
are we to account for the faculties, affections, and operations 
of the conscious and rational soul ? Here is a case for which 
the atheistic hypothesis contains no provision. Can its advo- 
cate tell us what law of nature produces thought, reason, 
reflection, volition, or memory? He does not know. Nay, 
does he know that they are produced by any law of nature ? 
Does he know even that the visible and tangible substances 



18 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

and qualities wliicli constitute the external universe are pro- 
duced by the laws of nature ? What is his theory of the 
laws of nature, but a blind conjecture — an insane and sacri- 
legious presumption — the blasphemous expedient of a des- 
perate depravity for robbing the Almighty Maker of his 
glory, and exiling the Universal Sovereign from his throne ? 

Away with these vagaries of atheistical philosophy ! Who 
that pretends to the power of reasoning, and possesses the 
least degree of candor, can survey the field of evidence over 
which we have glanced, and question the Supreme Existence? 

" There is one God/' All things are full of him. There 
is no part of his universe where his footsteps are not traced. 
His goodness blooms in every flower : his glory beams from 
every star. The bird sings to him among the branches, and 
the cricket answers " Hallelujah '^ from the hearth. The loud 
chanting of the storm, and the solemn anthem of the sea, 
mingle with the music of the spheres, in praise of his ador- 
able perfections. Every vegetable production, '^from the 
cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that springeth out of the 
wall,'' furnishes a specimen of his handiwork and a proof of 
his providence. Every material substance, from the atom to 
the orb — every animate existence, from the insect to the 
angel — proclaims his eternal being and his exhaustless bounty. 
His presence enfolds us like the atmosphere. The breeze is 
his breath, the sunshine his smile, the tempest his frown, the 
lightning his glance, the thunder his voice, the earthquake 
his tread. '^ In him we live, and move, and have our being." 
It is his Spirit that heaves the lungs, propels the blood along 
its mysterious channels, kindles the vital heat which pervades 
the animal system, and inspires with understanding the quick 
and conscious soul. 

Such and so ample are the evidences of his existence, that 
none of the sacred writers has attempted its demonstration, 
or even deemed its formal statement necessary. The Bible 



THE SUPREME EXISTENCE 



19 



opens with an announcement of liis creative energy in tlie 
production of the heavens and the earth. Moses makes no 
allusion to atheism, and there is no evidence of that blas- 
phemous species of unbelief in the early ages of the world. ^ 
On the contrary, the belief in a Supreme God seems to have ' 
been common to all nations and countries. The inference is 
natural, that it was a truth revealed to the first human pair, 
transmitted by tradition from generation to generation, and 
never in any instance questioned, till, with the increase of 
human depravity and impiety, men, from dreading, began at 
first to doubt, and at length waxed bold enough to deny, what 
had been from the beginning a matter of universal faith. 

Infinite is the audacity of atheism. <^The fool hath said 
in his heart. There is no God." Who but a fool would utter 
such a sentiment ? Who but a fool would deny what all men 
know intuitively to be true— that every effect must have a 
cause ? Who but a fool would believe that a watch grew by 
chance upon a tree, or was formed like a pebble by the action 
of the waves? Who but a fool would imagine that the ma- 
terials of this house were wafted together by the wind, and 
arranged themselves in their respective places fortuitously, 
without design, and without a designer ? Who but a fool 
would suppose that the stories of the heavens were built 
without an architect, and all the vast and complicated ma- 
chinery of nature, with its manifold beauty, and majestic 
symmetry, and marvellous harmony, was constructed without 
an artificer, and put in motion without power ? 

Hear that animalcule, which, with millions of its fellows, 
finds a world in a crumb of cheese, or an ocean in a drop of 
water, proclaiming that there is no such personage in exist- 
ence as Queen Victoria— that he has thoroughly investigated 
the subject, and found the common belief utterly delusive, 
and unworthy of any one's credence. Such is the folly of 
the atheist— nay, infinitely greater. Shut up in this little 



20 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

corner of creation, bearing no more proportion to tHe whole 
than a sand-grain to the globe — not knowing a millionth part 
of the facts and the phenomena of his own insignificant sphere, 
nor capable even of comprehending his own puny faculties — 
he rashly undertakes to deny the Supreme Existence. 

Atheism cannot adduce a particle of evidence in its support. 
It is contradicted by the hues of flowers, and the scintillations 
of stars ; rebuked by the breath of zephyrs, and the song of 
birds ; and pronounced anathema by a whole universe of wit- 
nesses. The atheist stands in the midst of God's great 
temple, upon his very footstool, before his throne; and, 
looking up into the face of God, declares, "There is no God." 

If aught can excite mirth in hell, it must be the exhibition 
of such madness on earth. If devils ever laugh, it must be 
at the folly and temerity of the atheist. He repudiates all 
evidence, all reason, all truth. His unbelief is the result, 
not of ignorance, but of wickedness — unmitigated and inex- 
cusable wickedness. It is not the error of the head, but the 
depravity of the heart. He says there is no God, because he 
wants no God. He hates God, would dethrone God, and 
bereave all being of its Father. He would rather be an 
orphan in an orphaned universe, than have a God whom his 
evil nature and his guilty conduct oblige him to hate for his 
holiness and dread for his justice. 

" No God ! " How miserable the man of such a creed ! 
a planet without a sun ! no light, nor life, nor breath, nor 
bloom ! the past all an enigma, the present all an illusion, 
and the future an everlasting night ! The last hour — the last 
agony — is upon him. No seraph chanting thrills his dying 
ear, nor cherub pinions hover about his pallid clay. No star 
of hope gleams over the opening grave, nor voice of friend- 
ship from beyond salutes the departing soul. Only the worms 
rise up to greet their brother, as he descends to their cold 
companionship ; and silence, and darkness, and sad incerti- 



THE SUPREME EXISTENCE. 21 

tude, close over him like nightfall. Ah ! well, if, amid that 
fearful gloom, come not the laugh of fiends, and the wail of 
ruined souls ! 

*^ No God !" 0, maddest thought of man, and madder 
than was ever breathed by demons ! France uttered the lie, 
and Vengeance wrote its refutation in blood. The fool still 
utters it in his heart, and every throb of that heart rebukes 
the blasphemy. 

"No God!'' Then, what are we all but shadows? Nay, 
worse than shadows — conscious atoms, floating in an eternal 
chaos; and our superiority to the worm is only a superior 
capacity of wretchedness — a superior certainty of woe. 

"No God!'' Then weep, earth ! and wail, ye heavens ! 
and lift, all creatures, the voice of lamentation ! for ye sit in 
a charnel, and worship a chimera ; and this universe is a vast 
Juggernaut, of which the wheels are worlds, and men the 
victims. Grind on, ye spheres ! for we are fatherless ! 

But the worst form of atheism — the most real and the most 
criminal — is practical atheism. To believe that there is a 
God, and not tremble at the thought of him — to believe that 
he is the universal sovereign, and offer him no service nor 
homage — to believe that his tender mercies are over all his 
works, and raise no song of gratitude or praise — to believe 
that he scrutinizes our conduct, and will bring every thought 
into judgment, and yet disregard his notice, and go boldly 
forward, unpardoned and impenitent, toward the " great white 
throne" — 0! this is a thousand times more awful than 
stupidly to mistake the furnished demonstration of his exist- 
ence, and blasphemously to enthrone chance in his holy 
temple ! This, however, is the atheism which has always 
been most prevalent among men. Few deny that there is a 
God; but how many live as if there were none! "God is 
not in all their thoughts." What they verbally acknowledge, 
they practically ignore. In the storm, and on the sick-bed, 



22 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

and around the graves of friends, they may think of God, and 
tremble, and pray ; but in the ordinary affairs and circum- 
stances of life — in the pursuits of business and pleasure — he 
is utterly disregarded and forgotten — neither loved nor feared, 
invoked nor praised. Miserable men! "without God" in 
such a world as this ! stumbling upon the dark mountains, 
and no light to guide them ! wandering in slippery places, 
and no hand to uphold them ! rushing along the brink of the 
precipice, and no arm outstretched between them and destruc- 
tion ! Alas ! where is their strength in adversity, their help 
in the time of trouble, their consolation amid the sorrows of 
life, and their sustaining hope when the eye grows dim in 
death ? Ah ! what will they do, or whither look for help, 
when the last dread storm shall force them from their moor- 
ings, and drive them out, helmless and dismantled, upon the 
sea of eternity ? 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 23 



II.— THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 

That God is one, is equally a dictate of reason and a doc- 
trine of Revelation. The unity of nature — the mutual depend- 
ence of its several parts, and the perfect harmony of its 
various movements — prove the production and government 
of the universe the work of one Omnific Agency — of one 
Almighty Sovereignty. The Holy Scriptures declare empha- 
tically that " There is one God/^ that ^' He is God alone," 
that ^^ There is none else," ^'none with him," "none like 
him," " none beside him," " none before him." But in con- 
nection with the Unity of the Divine Essence, they teach that 
there is a Trinity of Divine Persons. Tri-personality may 
appear incompatible with essential unity ; but it is for us to 
believe what the Scriptures reveal, without attempting to 
comprehend a philosophy which lies above the range of our 
reason. There is no difficulty in the doctrine, except what 
originates in unwarrantable and presumptuous speculation. 
There is a Father, and there is a Son, and there is a Spirit — 
is there any thing contradictory here ? The Father is God, 
and the Son is God, and the Spirit is God — is there any 
thing contradictory here ? The Father, and the Son, and the 
Spirit, are in some manner, which we need not understand, 
and which we cannot scrutinize, one God — is there any thing 
contradictory even here? There is mystery, indeed; but 
just because the finite cannot compass the infinite. How 
should the human worm, incapable of explaining the thou- 



24 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

sandth part of his own puny thought or feeble frame, aspire 
to so sublime a philosophy as that which concerns the mode 
of the Divine Subsistence ? There is incomprehensibility ; 
but there is no contradiction. We are required to believe, 
not that there are three Grods in one God, or three persons in 
one person; but that there are three "Adorable Distinctions'' 
— call them persons if you please — in one Adorable Nature. 

For proof of this sublime mystery of our faith, we depend 
entirely upon the Word of God. Nature and Providence 
afford clear and unequivocal indications of the Divine Exist- 
ence, and some of the Divine Perfections ; but of the Divine 
Tri-personality, Nature and Providence have never spoken. 
The perfect unity — moral and essential — of the three persons 
in the Godhead precludes all possibility of any discrepancy of 
views and operations in the creation and government of the 
universe. The universe, therefore, speaks much of a God, 
but says nothing of a Trinity. For information of the latter 
we repair to another oracle — the written Revelation of 
Heaven. We need not expect, however, to find, even here, 
such evidence as shall effectually prevent all cavilling and 
evasion ; for there is no revealed truth which has not been 
obscured and perverted by human ignorance and presump- 
tion ; and such a revelation would be incompatible with the 
moral government of God, and the moral agency of man. 
But if the doctrine is true and fundamental, its announce- 
ment will doubtless be found as distinct, and its development 
as broad, as is the case with reference to other fundamental 
truths in the Holy Volume ; and its accumulated evidence — 
from explicit statement and rational deduction — sufficient to 
satisfy the mind of any honest and candid inquirer. Such, 
we think, is the evidence afforded ; and planting our faith in 
the recorded fact, and rejoicing in its connection with our 
salvation as sinners, we cheerfully consent to postpone the 
consideration of its philosophy till we become seraphs. 



THE DOCTRINE OP THE TRINITY. 25 

I. The Scriptures indicate A plurality in the godhead. 

In proof of this we refer to the very first verse of Genesis. 
"In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the 
earth.'' Elohim is the plural, of which Eloah is the singu- 
lar ; and the plural noun is connected with a singular verb, as 
if to convey the idea of plurality in unity. 

Bara Elohim — "Gods created" — occurs above thirty 
times in the brief account of the creation. Jehovah Elohim 
— "The Lord thy Gods" — occurs more than a hundred 
times in the Pentateuch ; the former term expressing unity, 
the latter plurality. The plural — Elohim — is found no less 
than two thousand and five hundred times in the Old Testa- 
ment ; the singular — Eloah — only about sixty. 

Look at a few more instances. "And Jacob called the 
name of the place El-heth-el, because Elohim there appeared 
unto him."* "Jehovah our Elohim is our Jehovah."*)* "Ye 
cannot serve Jehovah, for he is the holy Elohim^^ " What 
one nation is like thy people Israel, whom Elohim went to 
redeem for a people to himself ?"§ " Know ye that Jehovah 
he is Elohim."\\ "Hold not thy peace, Elohim of my 
praise."^ In all these places the name is plural, and its 
verbs and pronouns are singular, as if the inspired writers 
intended to express plurality in unity. 

Other names of God are often used in the plural. El is 
Elim, Ahir is Ahirim, and Adon is Adonim. Adonai and 
Shaddai are also said, on the authority of Eichhorn, Dru- 
sius, Gesenius, and other eminent Hebraists, to be plural in 
signification. In Job we read literally — " None saith. Where 
is God my Makers ?" in Ecclesiastes — " Remember now thy 
Creators in the days of thy youth;" in Isaiah — " Thy Makers 
is thy husband." 



* Gen. XXXV. 7. f Deut. vi. 4. J Josh. xxiv. 19. 

^ 2 Sam. ii. 23. 1| Ps. c. 3. ^ Ps. cix. 1. 



26 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

But we forbear. Such instances are very numerous, and 
must be allowed due weight in the argument. The Scrip- 
tures constantly ajSirm that there is only one God; and we 
know not how to account for the plural names applied, with- 
out supposing him to exist in a plurality of persons. There 
was no necessity in the language, for the terms have their 
singulars ; nor is the use of the plural for the individual an 
idiom of the Hebrew tongue. The very nature of the Mosaic 
religion interposed objections to it — objections which could be 
overcome only by the stronger reason of a plurality of per- 
sons in the Deity. The leading principle of that system was, 
That Grod is One — a principle reiterated throughout the Pen- 
tateuch, and guarded by the whole ceremonial law. The sur- 
rounding nations were polytheists, and the Hebrews them- 
selves had become notoriously addicted to idolatry. The 
Mosaic theology and ritual aimed expressly to counteract this 
tendency. The first command, on the entrance of Israel into 
the promised land, was the unsparing destruction of every thing 
that could betray them into the aboriginal polytheism. In 
view of all this, how are we to account for the employment of 
terms, by the inspired Hebrew writers, implying a plurality 
in the Godhead, if no such plurality exists ? 

But there are other scriptural indications of such a plu- 
rality. 

" God said. Let us make man, in our image, after our like- 
ness.'^* Here the personal pronoun is used three times in 
the plural form. How is this to be explained ? Are we to 
believe that God speaks to the angels? This is mere conjec- 
ture, and a very unreasonable one. The persons addressed 
are not mere spectators, but actual cobperators in the work of 
creation; and who will dare ascribe such power to the angels ? 

*^The Lord said. Behold, the man is become as one of us."f 

* Gen. i. 26. f Gen. iii. 22. 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 27 

This is very remarkable^ and seems obviously to imply a plu- 
rality of Divine Persons. To suppose that God addresses the 
angels, is to make him rank himself with his creatures ; for 
he addresses his equals, and includes himself. 

"Let us go down, and there confound their language.^^* 
Can this be the mere pluralis excellentice, as employed by hu- 
man monarchs ? No human monarchs had yet existed when 
God uttered the words. No such figurative form of expres- 
sion was in use when Moses wrote. It was not the style of 
the Old Testament kings of later times. It is more likely that 
man has stolen it from God, than that God has borrowed it 
from man. There is no explanation, except on the admission 
of the supposed plurality. 

"Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: thou lovest 
righteousness and hatest iniquity; therefore God, even thy 
God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy 
fellows. ''f Here is one person addressing another. The 
apostle quotes the passage, and informs us that it is the lan- 
guage of God the Father to God the Son. J 

"The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, 
till I make thine enemies thy footstool. ''§ Here is David's 
Lord addressed by Jehovah. From the apostle we learn that 
this also is the language of the Eternal Father to his Co- 
Eternal Son. II 

"I heard the voice of Jehovah, saying, Whom shall I send, 
and who will go for us ?"^ Here Jehovah speaks as if there 
were others associated with him in commissioning the mes- 
senger. 

"Sing and rejoice, daughter of Zion ! for lo, I come, and 
will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord, and thou shalt 
know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto thee.'^** Here 



* Gen. xi. 7. f Ps. xlv. 6, 7. J Heb. i. 8. § Ps. ex. 1. 
II Heb. i. 13. ^ Isa. vi. 8. ** Zech. ii. 10, 11. 



28 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

is Jehovah coming to dwell in Zion, and he is sent by Jeho- 
vah of hosts. 

These passages are inexplicable and unintelligible, unless 
there is a plurality of persons in the Grodhead. 

II. The Scriptures further teach us that this plurality 

IS A TRIAD. 

'^The Lord bless thee, and keep thee : the Lord make his 
face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee : the Lord 
lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.^^''^ 
This is the form of blessing which God prescribed for his an- 
cient people. The repetition of the Divine name is very re- 
markable, and was thought by the Jews themselves to intimate 
the doctrine of the Trinity. The Rabbis say that for this rea- 
son the three parts of the benediction were pronounced with 
three different accents, the priest all the while holding up 
three fingers. 

^'And they cried one to another, saying — Holy, Holy, Holy, 
is the Lord of hosts.'^f Such is the song of the seraphim 
in the prophet's vision. The thrice-uttered '' Holy'' has 
been understood, by both Jews and Christians, to indicate 
the doctrine of the Divine Tri-Personality. 

^^Come ye near unto me; hear ye this : I have not spoken 
in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there 
am I ; and now, the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me." J 
It is thought that the last clause of this quotation should be 
rendered — "the Lord God hath sent me and his Spirit.'' 
Whichever version is the more correct, there are certainly 
three persons presented — "the Lord God," "His Spirit," and 
the Speaker, who afl&rms of himself an independent and eter- 
nal existence, though he is commissioned by " the Lord God." 
Is not this the Son, sent by the Father, and attended by the 
Holy Ghost ? 

* Num. vi. 24-26. f Isa, vi. 3. % Isa. xhiii. 16. 



THE DOCTRINE OE THE TRINITY. 29 

"And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway 
out of the water ; and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, 
and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and 
lighting upon him ; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying — This 
is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased/'* Plere are 
three persons — Christ ascending from the water, the Holy 
Ghost descending and lighting upon him, and God the Father 
speaking from heaven in acknowledgment of his Son. 

" Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations ; baptizing them 
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost.'^f Baptism is the sign and the seal of the " new and 
everlasting covenant;" and should be administered, of course, 
in the name of God, the author of that covenant. But Christ 
here directs the apostles to administer it " in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost;'' therefore 
we conclude that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost, are God ; in other words, that God subsists in a three- 
fold personality, under these three distinct titles. Who can 
believe that men are to be baptized in the name of God, and 
of a creature, and of an attribute ? Some of the Christian 
Fathers — Ambrose, Tertullian, Basil, and Jerome — tell us that 
the primitive Christian converts were thrice baptized, though 
the baptism was considered but one ; and that this was in- 
tended to represent the mystery of the Trinity in Unity. 

" If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father 
will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode 
with him."J Our blessed Lord here promises his own pre- 
sence, and the presence of his Father, as a perpetual privilege, 
to the faithful. But other places in this same chapter teach 
us that the promise is to be fulfilled in the advent of the 
Comforter, the Spirit of truth ; whom the Father shall send 
in his name, to dwell in them, and abide with them for ever; 

* Mat. iii. 16, 17. f Mat. xxviii. 19. J John xiv. 23. 



80 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

teaching them all things, and bringing all his own words to 
their remembrance.* 

" The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, 
and the communion of the Holy Grhost, be with you all/'f 
This is a prayer. Prayer is to be offered only to Grod ; but 
here is an inspired man praying to God, and to Christ, and to 
the Holy Ghost ; and they are all three equally addressed in 
the prayer, without any intimation of inferiority in any one 
of them ; and the prayer certainly supposes in each a know- 
ledge of our needs, and an ability to supply them ; and the 
conclusion is logically legitimate, that the Son and the Spirit 
are not mere attributes, or emanations, or subordinate agents, 
of the Father ; but his coequal, coessential, coeternal fellows. 

" Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and 
which was, and which is to come ; and from the Seven Spirits 
which are before his throne j and from Jesus Christ, who is 
the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and 
the prince of the kings of the earth. '^J In this passage, 
God the Father is described by a periphrasis taken from his 
attribute of eternity ; God the Son is designated by his own 
proper names and mediatorial relations ; while God the Holy 
Ghost is denoted by the ''Seven Spirits,^' seven being a 
sacred and mystical number, and used here to signify excel- 
lence and perfection, or perhaps because the epistle is ad- 
dressed " to the seven Churches which are in Asia.'' '' Grace 
and peace'' are invoked from these three Divine Persons, 
jointly and equally; from which it is to be inferred, that 
they are alike able to dispense these blessings, that they unite 
and concur in communicating good, that neither of them acts 
without both the others, and that they constitute together the 
One God, who is the only source of '' grace and peace," and 
the only proper object of prayer. 

* John xiv. 16, 17, 26. f 2 Cor. 13, 14. J Rev. i. 4, 5. 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 31 

Probably the strongest, clearest, fullest, most explicit state- 
ment of this doctrine contained in the whole Bible is that 
remarkable passage of St. John ;* " There are three that 
bear record in heaven — The Father, the Word, and the Holy 
Ghost ; and these three are one." The genuineness of this 
text has been doubted, indeed, because it is wanting in the 
Syriac, and in several other ancient versions. But we ought 
not to surrender it without conclusive evidence of its spuri- 
ousness; and, as Robert Hall remarks, such evidence has 
never been adduced, Bengelius, whom John Wesley pro- 
nounces '^ the most pious, judicious and laborious of all the 
modern commentators of the New Testament,'' for some time 
regarded it as an interpolation; but upon more thorough 
investigation of the matter, was satisfied that it ought not to 
be rejected. Mr. Wesley himself considers it genuine, and 
founds upon it his admirable sermon on The Trinity. Its 
advocates allege in its favor, that many of the versions in 
which it is wanting are defective in other places ; that the 
Syriac lacks the Apocalypse, and three of the Epistles ,* that 
it is cited by many ancient writers, from the time of St. John 
to the time of Constantino, which could not have been the 
case if it were not then in the Canon ; that its being wanting 
in many copies after that time is easily accounted for, by the 
fact that Constantino's successor was a zealous Arian, who 
would not scruple to expunge such a passage from all the 
copies that fell into his hands ; and that its connection, and 
the grammatical construction of the original, require its inser- 
tion, and furnish strong internal evidence of its genuineness. 
These considerations ought to be satisfactory ; and this point 
established, the doctrine of The Trinity is placed beyond 
question or cavil. It is difficult, indeed, to conceive any 



1 John V. 7. 



32 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

construction of language to express the idea with greater pro- 
priety and perspicuity. 

Other scriptures might be adduced. The passages of the 
New Testament are very numerous in which two other per- 
sons besides the Father are distinctly mentioned : one called 
the Word or the Son, and the other called the Spirit or Holy 
Grhost ; both honored with Divine names and titles, invested 
with Divine attributes and prerogatives, performing the appro- 
priate and peculiar works of God, and conjoined with the 
Father as the proper objects of invocation and praise. As if 
to indicate their essential equality, they are mentioned in 
every possible order : — Father, Son and Spirit ; Son, Father 
and Spirit ; Spirit, Father and Son ; Father, Spirit and Son ; 
Son, Spirit and Father ; Spirit, Son and Father. Were the 
writers of this volume Divinely inspired ? Wrote they as the 
amanuenses of Heaven ? Spake they as they were moved by 
the Holy Ghost ? Then there is verity in their statements, 
accuracy in their representations ; and if they speak of a 
Triad in the Deity, and still maintain the Oneness of his 
Nature, the doctrine of A Trinity in Unity is the inevitable 
deduction. 

III. The Scripture testimony is sustained by abundant 

COLLATERAL EVIDENCE. 

TJie Early Chri&tians worshipped a Trinity. This is evi- 
dent from their prayers, hymns, creeds, and discourses, still 
extant. Trypho, the Jew, a bitter enemy of the Christian 
cause, about the middle of the second century, mentions this 
article of their faith ; and Lucian, the Epicurean philosopher, 
in the latter part of the same century, represents them as 
swearing ^'by the Most High God, by the Immortal and 
Celestial Son, and by the Spirit proceeding from the Father 
— One of Three, and Three of One.^^ Justin Martyr, one 
hundred and forty years after Christ, says, " Him, the Father 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 33 

of righteousness, and tlie Son who came from him, with the 
Prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore/' Athenagoras, 
thirty-eight years later, says, '' We preach God the Father, 
Grod the Son, and God the Holy Ghost; and these three are 
one." Clemens Alexandrinus, sixteen years later, says, 
" Grant that we may praise the Son, and the Father, with the 
Holy Ghost, all in One/' Tertullian, the eloquent, says, 
" There are three, of the same substance, power, and glory ; 
eternally united, and constituting but One God/' Theo- 
philus. Bishop of Antioch, says, " The three days before the 
creation of the heavenly luminaries represent the Trinity — 
God, and his Word, and his Wisdom/' Polycarp, a disciple 
of St. John, concluded his prayer at the stake with a doxo- 
logy to " The Eternal Father," " The Heavenly Jesus," and 
"The Holy Spirit." We might mention others — Clement 
of Rome, Melito of Sardius, Tatian of Antioch, and several 
more — all of the first two centuries, and some of them con- 
temporary with the apostles — who bear distinct testimony to 
the same faith of the primitive Church. And their testi- 
mony is corroborated by Origen and Cyprian of the third 
century. The former says, " We acknowledge one God only 
— the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." The latter 
affirms, that by the form of baptism Christ inculcated the 
mystery of the Trinity. These citations show that the 
doctrine was held by the early Christians, and was not an 
invention of later times — not one of the corruptions accom- 
panying the grand Italian apostasy ; and consequently, that 
our interpretation of Scripture on the subject, harmonizes 
with theirs, who received the truth immediately from the 
apostles of our Lord. 

The same doctrine was held by the Ancient Jewish Church. 
This appears from the remarks already made on the Aaronical 
benediction, and the quotations from the Evangelical Pro- 
phet. Similar evidence might have been adduced in con- 
2* 



34 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

nection with several other Old Testament Scriptures examined. 
Philo of Alexandria, a learned Jew, who flourished before 
the birth of our Saviour, holds the following language : " He 
who is, is on each side attended by his nearest Powers ; of 
which the one is creative, and the other kingly ; the creative 
is God, and the kingly is Lord ; and he who is between them, 
being thus attended by both his Powers, presents the appear- 
ance, sometimes of one, and sometimes of three." The 
Chaldee Paraphrasts, and other Jewish Commentators, speak 
of ^^ Three Degrees in the 'Mystery of Ulohim ;" and these 
degrees they call Persons, and affirm that they are insepara- 
bly one. In the Jewish book Zohar is the following remark- 
able paraphrase on Deuteronomy vi. 4 : "Hear, Israel : 
The Lord our God is one Lord. The Lord, and our God, 
and the Lord, are one. The first is Jehovah, the beginning 
and perfection of all things, and he is called the Father; the 
second is our God, the depth and the fountain of sciences, and 
he is called the Son ; and the third is the Holy Ghost, that 
proceedeth from them both. Therefore he saith, Hear, 
Israel ; that is. Join together this Father, this Son, and this 
Holy Ghost; and make them one essence, one substance; 
for whatever is in the one is in the other : he was the whole, 
he is the whole, and he will be the whole.'' All this is 
strongly confirmatory of the foregoing arguments. If the 
great mass of modern Christians harmonize on this subject 
with the ancient Jewish Church, is there not, to say the 
least, some probability in our belief? If we have interpreted 
the Old Testament Scriptures as they were originally under- 
stood by God's peculiar covenant people, " who received the 
lively Oracles to give unto us" — who by Divine appointment, 
for fifteen hundred years, held the revelation of Heaven in 
trust for the world — is it not likely that our interpretation is 
correct ? 

Traditions of this truth have been found in nearly all 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 35 

heaihcn nations, and may in many instances be traced back to 
a ver^ remote antiquity. The Hindoos have always believed 
in a Triune Grod, whom they represent by an image with three 
faces, and worship under three names — Brahma, the Supreme 
Father; Veshnu, the Incarnate Mediator; and Seeva, the 
Destroyer and Regenerator. The ancient Persians adored a 
Trinity of Divine Persons, whom they called Ormusd, Mithr, 
and Ahriman ; and the Oracles of Zoroaster speak of '^a Triad 
of Deity, shining forth throughout the whole world.'' The 
Egyptians had a Trinity — Osiris, Isis, and Typhon ; denoting 
Light, Fire, and Spirit ; and represented on their architecture 
by a globe, a wing, and a serpent. Abenephius, an Arabian 
writer, says that by these the Egyptians shadowed Theon 
TrimorpTion, or God in three forms. One of the principles 
of the Egyptian theology, as given by Damascius, and cited 
by Cud worth, is, " that there is One Origin of all things, 
praised under the name of the Unknown Darkness, and this 
thrice repeated.'' Hermes Trismegistus speaks of a Great 
Eternal Intelligence, subsisting in Three Persons, denomi- 
nated "Light, Mind, and Spirit." The Orphic theology, 
the most ancient recorded in Grecian history, mentions an 
Eternal and Incomprehensible Being, called " Light, Counsel, 
and Life." According to Suidas, Timotheus, and Proclus, 
Orpheus taught the existence of " One God in Three Minds" 
— affirmed all things to haVe been made by " One God in 
Three Names." Pythagoras declared that " From an Eternal 
Unity sprang an Infinite Duality ; that is. From Him who 
always existed alone, proceeded Two Others, who were In- 
finite." Plato speaks of a Triad, whom he denominates 
^^Agathon^^ the Good; ^^Logos,^' the Word; and ^^Psyche 
Kosmou," the Soul of the World. Permenides mentions 
"Three Original Powers— The One, The Mind, and The 
Soul." Amelius calls them "Three Kings," and "Three 
Creators." Numenius acknowledged a Triad, the Second 



36 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

Person of whicli was the Son of the First, and the Third 
proceeded from both. In Thibet and Tangut the people wor- 
ship an idol representing a Threefold God, and wear medals 
impressed with his image. An antique medal, found in 
Siberia, and placed in the cabinet of the Russian Emperor, 
presents on one side a human figure with three heads, and on 
the other the following inscription — " The bright and sacred 
image of the Deity, conspicuous in three figures." In the 
Edda, the most remarkable monument of Scandinavian theol- 
ogy, Gangler is introduced into the palace of the gods, where 
he sees three thrones, occupied by three equal Divine 
Persons. The image of the Roman Diana was stamped on a 
medal, with three heads united to one body. The German 
Trygla was drawn in the same manner. The Gauls united 
their gods in triple groups. The great idol of the Japanese 
is one form with three heads. Lao Kiun, founder of one 
of the Chinese sects, laid down this as the leading doctrine 
of his philosophy : " The Eternal Reason produced One, One 
produced Two, Two produced Three, and Three produced all 
things." The Iroquois say that Three Eternal Spirits were 
employed in creating mankind. The Peruvians adored Three 
Great Lights. The people of Cuquisaco worshipped an image 
named Tanga-Tanga — ^' One in Three, and Three in One."* 
Is there no significance in these traditions? Had they no 
other origin than the random fancy of mankind ? Whence, 
then, the remarkable coincidence of number, and similarity 
of phrase ? How are we to account for these notions of a 
Trinity, inwrought in the religious systems of all nations, and 
traceable to the most distant periods of which we have any 
authentic records ? Is it likely that so many human tribes, 
scattered so widely over the world, perfectly isolated and in- 
dependent, would embrace substantially the same opinion, 

* See Dwight's Theology. 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 37 

without some common basis of belief? And wbat can that 
common basis be, but an original revelation from Heaven, 
transmitted from generation to generation, with various modi- 
fications and corruptions, through the ever-enlarging ramifi- 
cations of the human race ? 

Thus, the worship of the early Christians, the faith of the 
ancient Jewish Church, and the traditions prevalent in all 
heathen nations, furnish abundant evidence and illustration, 
collateral to the Scripture testimony. 

IV. Here we would conclude the argument; but many 
OBJECTIONS have been urged against the doctrine of the 
Trinity ; a few of which, and chiefly the more common and 
plausible, it may be deemed necessary to notice. 

The doctrine has been pronounced self-contradictori/. Such 
a sentence argues misapprehension. It is by no means ima- 
gined that God is One and Three in the same sense. This 
would indeed be a palpable contradiction. When we speak 
of the Trinity in Unity, we do not mean that there are three 
distinct essences in some manner mysteriously conjoined — that 
the Father, the Son, and the Spirit possess, each of them 
without the others, a Divine Nature and Divine Perfections. 
We mean that in the same Numerical Essence there is an 
ineflPable Threefold Distinction, to which there is nothing 
analogous in nature. To this Threefold Distinction the 
Greeks applied the term Hypostasis, and the Latins the term 
Persona; and we, if we speak of it at all, must follow their 
example. It is sublimely mysterious, but not self-contradic- 
tory. 

It has often been alleged that the doctrine is contrary to 
reason. Nay, it is only superior to reason. It is not a 
theory proposed for speculation, but a revelation presented 
for belief. Men must not expect to comprehend every truth 
stated in the Holy Scriptures, till the finite shall bft able to 



38 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

grasp the infinite. There are a thousand other things which 
are never called in question, though they are equally incon- 
ceivable — equally confounding to our feeble reason. You 
believe in the Divine Eternity and Ubiquity : are they less 
mysterious than the Divine Tri-Unity? Do you doubt the 
reality of gravitation ? Yet you cannot explain the pheno- 
menon. Do you doubt the union of mind and matter ? Yet 
you cannot trace the connection. Why, then, will you make 
the mysteriousness of the Trinity a ground of disbelief? You 
might as well embarrass yourself with the laws of your own 
existence, and question the fact because you cannot compre- 
hend its philosophy. It is in each case the modus existendiy 
and not the fact itself, which transcends our comprehension ; 
and this is a matter concerning which reason has no right to 
speculate. 

It has been objected that the terms we use are 7iot found 
in the Bible. "We admit the negation. The term Trinity is 
said to have been introduced by Theophilus, in the year of 
our Lord one hundred and sixty-one j and the term Fersona, 
or Person, is supposed to have been first employed in this 
application by Tertullian. But we contend not for terms ? 
we contend only for truths. Yet we must use such terms as 
are best adapted to express the truths ; and we know of none on 
this subject more suitable than those ordinarily employed. No 
matter whether or not the terms are in the Bible, if the doctrine 
is there. That the doctrine is there, cannot be denied, with- 
out a manifest wresting of the Word of God, and a total dis- 
regard of some of the plainest and most obvious principles of 
biblical interpretation. The Scriptures distinctly teach us 
that Grod is One ', yet they as clearly inculcate that Three are 
God. These two propositions are compatible, or they are 
incompatible. If they are incompatible, then the Scriptures 
are self-contradictory, and cannot be Divinely inspired ; but 
if they are compatible, then there must be, notwithstanding 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 39 

its mysteriousness, a Threefold Distinction in the Eternal 
Unity. If this reasoning is sound, we must be either infidels 
or Trinitarians. We must believe that the Bible is a cheat, 
or that the Trinity is a truth. We must repudiate the volume 
as a Divine Revelation, or embrace its doctrine of a Divine 
Tri-Unity. And embracing the doctrine, we can see no valid 
objection to the use of the terms by which it is so accurately 
expressed ; especially, since we all employ, and are obliged to 
employ, on other subjects in Theology, so many terms which 
are not found in the Bible. 

It may be thought that this article of our faith is wholly 
speculative, of no practical utility, and therefore improbable, 
and unworthy of credence. This is a vast mistake. The 
doctrine is eminently practical. There is no announcement 
of the gospel more important to the hopes and the happiness 
of the Church. It sustains a vital relation to all our higher 
interests and duties, as fallen, redeemed, and immortal beings. 
Without a knowledge of it, we could never understand that 
grandest of all the works of God — " the ransom of a world.'' 
'^ Here the whole Deity is known.'' The Father sends the 
Son; the Son dies for sinners; and the Spirit applies the 
purchased salvation. Our prayers and praises are addressed 
to God the Father, through the mediation of God the Son, by 
the aid of God the Spirit. The first bestows the blessing, the 
second constitutes the medium of its communication, and the 
third is the efficient agency by which it is conveyed and cer- 
tified to the believing soul. But how could poor sinners, 
environed as we are with materialism, approach the Eternal 
Father, sitting in his sublime spirituality and awful purity 
upon the summit of the universe, without the intervention of 
the Incarnate Son ? And how could we trust in that inter- 
vention, if the Son were an agent, a delegate, angelic, or even 
super-angelic, yet inferior to the Father — if the Son were not 
essentially in the Father, and the Father in the Son ? An(^ 



40 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

what could his ^^meritorious cross and passion'' avail us, if, 
having returned to heaven, he had not sent us another Com- 
forter, to abide with us for ever ; and if that comforter were 
not something more than a mere attribute or emanation of 
Deity — a real personal agent, and one with the Father and 
the Son ? Here is the basis of the gospel morality, and the 
ground of all acceptable obedience. To each of the co-equal, 
co-eternal, consubstantial Three, we owe an everlasting debt 
of gratitude and glory. Let us learn to adore, in silence, 
the Infinite Perfection; without attempting to comprehend 
his essence, his attributes, or his mode of being ; till, changed 
into his blessed image, and caught up to his bright pavilion, 
we shall see him as he is, and praise him as we ought ! 



JEHOVAH INCOMPARABLE. 41 



III.— JEHOVAH INCOMPARABLE. 

Nearly all that we know of God is that Grod is unknown. 
It requires the Infinite to comprehend the Infinite. He may- 
possess perfections for which we have no names^ of which we 
can conceive no ideas. Even of those faculties which he is 
constantly displaying before our eyes, we understand only 
enough to be able to say that they are immeasurable, incal- 
culable, inscrutable. We give names to a few ; but these are 
names, not for single faculties, but for vast classes of faculties, 
each incomprehensible to all but Grod himself. ^^ Canst thou 
by searching find out God ? canst thou find out the Almighty 
to perfection ? It is high as heaven ; what canst thou do ? 
deeper than hell ; what canst thou know ? the measure thereof 
is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.'' Simon- 
ides being asked, " What is God?" demanded a day in which 
to frame his reply; finding a day insufficient, he afterward 
requested a week; the week having expired, he desired a 
month; the month gone, he asked a year; and finally, de- 
clared the question unanswerable. Even the inspired apostle, 
gazing, as from a precipice, into the abyss of Godhead, 
exclaims — " the depth ! how unsearchable ! past finding 
out V Yet in his works we trace his wonders, and in his 
word we behold the outbeamings of his glory. Let us approach 
and gaze, but with humble and adoring reverence. " Thou 
art great, Lord God, for there is none like thee.''* 

* 2 Sam. vii. 22. 



42 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

I. There is none like God in the nature of his essence. 

^^God is a spi7'it." What kind of a spirit we cannot tell. 
There may be as many varieties of spirit as of matter, as many 
degrees of excellence in the invisible world as in the visible, 
as many ranks and orders among incorporeal beings as among 
corporeal. God is the most glorious of all spirits, the only 
absolutely perfect spirit. The term does not describe his 
essence — only expresses his distinction from matter, his supe- 
riority to matter. He is called a spirit, not because there is 
any similarity between him and other spirits. Doubtless, he 
differs from the angel, more than the angel from the clod. 
Of his essence we are profoundly ignorant. We cannot com- 
prehend, we cannot analyze, we cannot grasp it. It is much 
easier to conceive what it is not, than to conceive what it is. 
Most of the terms used to express it convey only negative 
ideas. We know not what God is. We know only that he 
is neither a corporeal being, nor clothed with a material 
habiliment — an invisible and intangible essence, "without 
body or parts.'^ Corporeal, he could not be infinite. Con- 
fined within a material investiture, he would be inferior even 
to angels, and only equal to men. 

True, we read of his eyes, his ears, his hands, his feet, his 
mouth, his nostrils, and the like. But none of these is in- 
tended to convey the idea of corporeity. They are figurative 
terms, employed merely for the want of a more perfect medium 
of communication. No language can express the modes of 
the Divine Existence, or the movements of the Divine Intel- 
ligence. God accommodates his revelations, as far as pos- 
sible, to our infirmities — appropriates our feeble terms to 
denote his own glorious perfections, while he carefully guards 
them against misinterpretation by repeated explicit declara- 
tions of the transcendent and incomprehensible nature of his 
essence. 

The spirituality of God gives us a gleam of light concern- 



JEHOVAH INCOMPARABLE. 43 

ing his Omnipresence and Omniscience. We can partially 
conceive how such a nature can be infinite in extension and 
intelligence; existing everywhere, and understanding every 
thing ; pervading the universe, and perceiving all its pheno- 
mena ', filling immensity with his presence, and comprehend- 
ing eternity in his knowledge ; most intimately near to every 
material atom, and most thoroughly acquainted with every 
mental experience ; investing the personality of his number- 
less creatures more perfectly than the all-surrounding atmo- 
sphere, and scrutinizing their every thought and feeling more 
closely than the all-penetrating light ; controlling all events, 
calculating all contingences, and surveying at a glance all the 
actualities and all the possibilities of the past, the present, and 
the future. '^0 Lord, thou hast searched me and known 
me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou 
understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path 
and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. 
For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, Lord, thou 
knowest it altogether. Thou has beset me behind and before, 
and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too won- 
derful for me ; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither 
shall I go from thy Spirit ? or whither shall I flee from thy 
presence ? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there : if I 
make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the 
wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the 
sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand 
shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me ; 
even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness 
hideth not from thee ; but the night shineth as the day : the 
darkness and the light are both alike to thee.'' 

II. There is none like Grod in the duration of his 

BEING. 

He is "from everlasting to everlasting." His existence is 



44 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

not measured by time — bears no relation to time. There never 
was a time when lie did not exist : there never will be a time 
when he will not exist. Age is no attribute of his being. 
He is no older now than he was when he kindled the sun j 
and will be no older millions of years hence than he was 
millions of years ago. He is absolutely without beginning 
and without end. 

Without heginning. If he created all things, he was before 
all things. If before all things, he never began to be ; for 
there was no prior cause to originate his being, and being 
cannot originate without a cause. Therefore, if Grod had not 
existed from eternity, he could never have existed at all. 
Nay, if God had not existed from eternity, nothing else could 
ever have existed, for there would have been nothing to pro- 
duce the first existence. So, if there had ever been a period 
when nothing existed, eternity must have been a void, and 
space must have remained unpeopled for ever. But the Scrip- 
tures ascribe to God being without beginning. He is ^^ The 
Ancient of Days;'^ and his ^^ goings forth are from of old, 
from everlasting.'^ The Son saith — " The Father hath life 
in himself;'' that is, not by participation or inheritance, but 
by nature and necessity ; not as a stream flowing into him, 
but as a fountain dispensing to the universe. Receiving life 
from none, he communicates life to all. All creatures ^' live, 
move, and have their being" in him; but he "hath life in 
himself." 

Without end. God's existence is self-existence. Self- 
existence is necessary existence. Necessary existence is ever- 
lasting existence. It can no more end than it could begin. 
It is impossible that God should ever cease to be. He can- 
not destroy himself. No created power can destroy the uncre- 
ated. Existing independently of any cause, there can be no 
cause for the cessation of his existence. The cessation of his 



JEHOVAH INCOMPARABLE. 45 

existence, therefore, would be an event without a cause, which 
is unphilosophical and absurd. The Scriptures abundantly 
confirm our reasoning. They declare that ^' the Lord shall 
endure for ever" — that ^^his years shall not fail'^ — "shall 
have no end.'^ The prophet styles him "the High and 
the Holy One that inhabiteth eternity." A child defined 
eternity to be "the life-time of God." The idea is abso- 
lutely overwhelming. Calculate the moments from the crea- 
tion of Adam to the present hour ; multiply the sum by mil- 
lions, by centuplicated millions ; and let each moment stand 
for a chiliad, for a billion of years } but the proportion which 
the whole would bear to the duration of the Divine Existence 
would be infinitely less than the proportion which one second 
would bear to all this mighty period. Indeed, there is no 
proportion ; and an attempt at illustration by comparison only 
degrades the sublimity of the subject. The longest period of 
time has its limit; but the life of God is illimitable and 
eternal. 

What is eternal must be immutahle. Men are constantly 
changing — their mental states — the very substance of their 
bodies. But God is "the same " — "without variableness, or 
shadow of turning " — " yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." 
He can have no new ideas, no new consciousness. His pre- 
sent ideas are his eternal ideas ; his present consciousness is 
his eternal consciousness — identical with all the past, identi- 
cal with all the future. He can never forget ; he can never 
anticipate. What took place a thousand years ago, and what 
will take place a thousand years to come, are both as really 
present to him as what is now transpiring. His essence and 
his attributes are the very same at this moment that they 
were before "the morning stars sang together" over the new- 
born worlds; and will remain precisely what they are, when 
"the heavens shall have passed away." 



46 HEADLANDS OF TAITH. 

III. There is none like God in the power op his 

AGENCY. 

If nothing short of Almightiness could produce something 
out of nothing, what must be our conceptions of that Omnific 
Energy which spoke the universe into being ? The creative 
faculty establishes between Grod and all other agents a pecu- 
liar distinction. The very mention of such a power raises our 
thoughts to their utmost elevation. As Doctor Croly observes, 
^^ All the other acts and attributes of God exhibit him only as 
a more exalted specimen of human or angelic nature : crea- 
tion establishes the impassable line ; all thenceforth is sepa- 
rate, mysterious, supreme.'' And may it not be, partly, to 
impress his rational creatures with the fact of his infinite supe- 
riority, that the creative faculty has been displayed with such 
astonishing profusion and magnificence, throughout the teem- 
ing earth and the illimitable sky ? 

Revelation abounds with the most amazing descriptions of 
the Divine Power ; descriptions to which Divine Inspiration 
alone is adequate, and in which even Divine Inspiration 
appears to labor. They are too familiar to require quotation, 
and too copious to admit of it. Nature speaks the same lan- 
guage. Look abroad through the universe, and behold the 
vastness and variety of the works of God. The fields of hea- 
ven are sown with stars. Our best telescopes reveal more 
than a hundred millions, besides above three thousand nebulae, 
each of which may consist of as many millions more. Every 
one of these glorious luminaries is a sun ; and probably, like 
our own, the centre of a system of planetary and cometary 
worlds. How great must be the power of Him who ^^ telleth 
their number, and calleth them all by their names" — who 
originally willed their teeming myriads into being ! 

These innumerable suns, with all their secondary spheres, 
are in motion — revolving, with inconceivable velocity, yet in 



JEHOVAH INCOMPARABLE. 47 

the most perfect harmony, around their respective centres; 
and probably, with those centres, around some mightier centre 
of the whole. But God, with infinite ease, bears up all as 
^^ in the hollow of his hand.'^ A giant would stagger under 
the weight of a rock, and a falling mountain would crush an 
army of giants ; but God, without effort, sustains all worlds, 
and propels them in their orbits for ever. 

And who will presume to say that they are not all teeming 
with life — peopled with innumerable sentient, rational, and 
immortal beings? In favor of such a hypothesis, analogy 
affords no inconsiderable evidence. It is difficult to believe 
that this insignificant sphere, which is to the whole only as a 
sand-grain to the solar system, can be the only world inhab- 
ited. It is difficult to believe that God would build so vast a 
house, and leave it without inhabitants — so magnificent a 
temple, and leave it without worshippers. no ! every one 
of those refulgent orbs swarms with a population, of which 
the census has never been taken, and the number has never 
been told. What amazing views does this idea give us of 
Omnipotence! One mind is a more illustrious display of 
creative power than the whole inanimate universe. Who 
shall estimate the value of the conscious, reflective, and im- 
mortal mind; with all its loves, and joys, and hopes; its 
capabilities of knowledge, of virtue, and of usefulness; of 
union and fellowship with God, bearing his image, reflecting 
his glory, and advancing in all goodness and blessedness for 
ever? " Worlds were made for the use of minds; minds for 
the use of God." 

The earth is supposed to contain ten hundred millions of 
souls. The sun is larger by nearly thirteen hundred thou- 
sand times ; and if hollow, could receive into its bosom more 
than a million such planets. If inhabited, how immense its 
population ! Extend the thought. The Milky Way is a 
cluster of suns, consisting of more than a hundred millions; 



48 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

and there are more than three thousand such clusters visible 
in space. If every sun^ like our own, is surrounded by 
its planets; and every planet is attended by its satellites; 
and sunS; planets, and satellites are all the abodes of life, and 
thought, and feeling — God ! what can be the number of 
thy rational creatures? and who shall tell what wings of 
light, what eyes of flame, what forms of wondrous beauty, 
what voices of melody and power, what orders of intellectual 
strength, what transcendent faculties of love and worship, 
what happy commerce of congenial souls, what ineffable 
sweetness of domestic sympathies, what blissful security of 
unsullied virtue, pervade the countless worlds that revolve 
around thy throne ? 

'' Lo, these are parts of his ways ; but how small a portion is 
heard of him ! but the thunder of his power who can under- 
stand !'' We are not to limit Omnipotence by what we have 
seen, or what we can conjecture, of its displays. The uni- 
verse is the manifestation of the principle, not the measure 
of its capacity. In the production of the heavens and the 
earth there was an infinite reserve of creative energy. There 
was no labor, no effort. '' He spake, and it was done : he 
commanded, and it stood fast.'^ His Almightiness can never 
be exhausted or diminished; and, for aught we know, in 
every imaginable moment of eternity, he may be creating 
new beings, and adding new excellences to those already 
created. 

ly. There is none like God in the wisdom or his 

ARRANGEMENTS. 

Wisdom displays itself in the adoption of suitable means 
to secure important ends. Now, what are the ends of God ? 
For what purpose did he create the universe, and with what 
view does he still sustain and govern it ? Doubtless for the 
communication of good, for the display of his infinite bene- 



JEHOVAH INCOMPARABLE. 49 

volence, and the diffusion of his infinite blessedness. And what 
are the means by which he seeks the accomplishment of this 
glorious purpose ? Look abroad over the universe. What an 
endless variety of creatures, organic and inorganic, animate and 
inanimate, rational and irrational, from the pebble to the dia- 
mond, from the mushroom to the magnolia, from the insect to 
the archangel. And the animalcule is as perfect in every part as 
the elephant, and the microscopic particles are as wondrously 
constructed as the stellar orbs. How admirable is the adjust- 
ment of every thing to its place I how nice the adaptation of 
the several functions to their several spheres ! how perfect the 
arrangement ! how beautiful the gradation ! how harmonious 
the laws which govern ! how manifold and mysterious the re- 
lations of the innumerable parts to the immeasurable whole ! 

Wisdom displays itself in the use of few and simple 
means to secure many and stupendous benefits. Here the 
wisdom of God is especially conspicuous. Hear the language 
of an eloquent American writer :* " The nervous filaments 
of the senses are finer than a spider's thread ; yet they are 
the avenues of communication between the world without and 
the world within. They spread themselves out over a little 
space at the roots of the tongue ; and all the savors of nature 
become tributary to our pleasure. They unfold themselves 
over a little space in the olfactory organs ; and we catch the 
perfumes of all the zones. They are ramified over a little 
space in the hollow of the ear; and the myriad voices of 
nature, from the notes of the mellifluous song-bird to the 
organ-tones of Heaven's cathedral — the thunder, the cataract, 
and the ocean — become our orchestra. They line a spot in 
the interior of the eye, so small that the tip of the finger may 
cover it ; when lo ! the earth and the heavens, to the remotest 
constellations, that seem to glimmer feebly on the confines of 

* Hon. Horace Mann. 



50 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

space, are painted, quick as thought, in the chambers of the 
brain. By these senses we hold connection with all external 
things, as though millions of telegraphic wires were stretched 
from every outward object, and came in converging lines to 
find their focus in our organs, and through these inlets to 
pour their pictures, their odors, and their songs, into the all- 
capacious brain; nay, better than this, for we have the 
picture, the perfume, and the music, without the encumbrance 
of the wires/^ 

This is but a single instance, in which the means is one, 
and the beneficial results innumerable. A thousand illustra- 
tions might be added. Gravitation is a principle which per- 
vades all matter, holds the terraqueous globe together, attaches 
rocks and buildings to its surface, confines the ocean within 
its limits, governs all locomotion of men and machinery, 
regulates the revolutions of planets and suns, binds myriads 
of worlds into majestic systems, and in many other ways secures 
incalculable good to every part of the universe. The myste- 
rious agent which we call light appears to be a simple prin- 
ciple ; yet it originates all color, imparting endless variety of 
beauty to earth, and of brilliancy to heaven. " One act of 
Divine power," says Mr, Watson, "in giving a certain incli- 
nation to the earth's axis, produced the vicissitude of its 
seasons, gave laws to its temperature, and covered it with in- 
creased variety of productions.'' The origin of vitality is 
identical in all animals ; and the bird, the bat, and the ser- 
pent, in embryo, are indistinguishable by the most skilful 
naturalist. The germ appears to be the same in the several 
species of plants. A single principle lies at the foundation 
of all organic life; but, coming under different laws of 
development, produces myriads of forms, functions, and gra- 
dations. In short, a few simple elements, in various com- 
binations, compose the wondrous structure of the material 
universe; and earth, and air, and sea, and stars, are perhaps 



I 



JEHOVAH INCOMPARABLE. 51 

resolvable into a dozen primary principles. Thus the Divine 
Wisdom, by the fewest and simplest means, secures the 
mightiest and most glorious results. 

In the procedure of his providence, Grod acts upon the 
same principle: ^' from seeming evil, still educing good;" 
overruling the affairs of empires, '' the wrath of men," and the 
rage of hell, so as to make all subserve the purposes of his 
transcendent goodness, the felicity of his immense dominion. 

But the most stupendous of all the displays of Divine Wis- 
dom is furnished in the fact of our redemption. This is the 
amazing scheme into which "the angels desire to look." 
How could the Universal Lord save the sinful race, without 
prejudice to his own adorable perfections, or injury to other 
orders of his subjects, and other provinces of his empire ? Be- 
hold the Substitute, " God manifest in the flesh." Behold 
the mighty sacrifice, which meets at once the demand of Jus- 
tice and the desire of Mercy. Behold Satan foiled by his own 
subtlety, and defeated by his own malignity ; the cross which 
he has reared for Christ made the instrument of his own over- 
throw, and the occasion of eternal triumph to the Crucified. 
The death of Christ was the coronation of the wisdom of God. 

V. There is none like God in the benevolence op his 

CHARACTER. 

Benevolence is good-will — the disposition to communicate 
benefit. God must be either benevolent or malevolent. If 
malevolent, he must be miserable, for malevolence always pro- 
duces misery. Moreover, if he were malevolent, there could 
be no happiness in the universe. With infinite power to carry 
out infinite hate, he would make every creature utterly un- 
happy, and every world a hell. But this is not the case. 
Among our own species, sinful as we are, there is manifestly 
more happiness than misery; and, for aught we can tell, earth 
may be the only world that weeps. God, therefore, cannot be 



52 HEADLANDS or FAITH. 

malevolent ; and if not malevolent, he must be benevolent ; and 
if benevolent, infinitely so, since all his attributes are infinite. 
On this subject, however, he has not left himself without 
witness. The Scriptures are full of his henevolence. " God 
is love ]'' and this is the most accurate, as well as the most 
comprehensive definition of his nature ever given to the world. 
What heart has not kindled over that most delightful account 
of the Divine character, contained in the proclamation of the 
Divine Name to Moses? — '^The Lord, the Lord Grod, merci- 
ful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and 
truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and 
transgression and sin.''* All these titles and descriptions, 
except the first two, refer to the Divine Benevolence, denot- 
ing different modifications of the same attribute. The Merci- 
ful, Gracious, Loving, Longsufi"ering, Bountiful, Faithful, 
Redeeming, Pardoning God, is, in these several characters, 
only the Benevolent God, manifesting his benevolence accord- 
ing to the difi"erent relations and necessities of his creatures. 
His goodness is not an accidental or occasional afiection, 
but one of the essential and invariable glories of his nature, 
of which all his other moral attributes are only so many differ- 
ent modifications. ^'The Lord is good, and doeth good." His 
benevolence is active, diffusive, a fountain for ever overflowing. 
"He delighteth in mercy." It is not yielded reluctantly, nor 
imparted indifferently, nor dispensed in stinted measure. It 
flows forth, a plenteous stream, from an eternal source. And 
it is as impartial as it is copious and free. " The Lord is 
good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." 
He exercises his Omnipotence in spreading joy through the 
universe. No corner of his creation is overlooked or neglected. 
His bounty is alike unlimited and inexhaustible. " Like his 
emblem the sun," it has been eloquently said, " which sheds 

* Ex. xxxiv. 6, 7. 



JEHOVAH INCOMPARABLE. 53 

its beams on the surrounding worlds, and enlightens and 
cherishes the whole system, without diminishing in splendor, 
he imparts, without being exhausted; and ever giving, has 
yet infinitely more to give/'* 

Such is the testimony of Scripture. The universe echoes 
the announcement. All nature is vocal with the melody and 
radiant with the glory of the Divine Benevolence. It is 
chanted by every bird of song, exhaled from every flower of 
the field, and reflected in every beam of the daylight. Bene- 
volence was doubtless the motive of creation. What else 
could have actuated the Almighty, in filling the void space 
with ardent existences, and kindling into consciousness my- 
riads of rejoicing spirits ? Could it be the selfish desire of en- 
hancing his own glory and felicity? These were already in- 
finite. ! was it not the desire of having creatures around 
him, to whom he might communicate something of his own 
infinite blessedness ? ^^ True, other feelings, born of this im- 
pulse, might join in the recompense. When the Almighty 
Maker, pausing from his work, looked forth complacently up- 
on his infant universe, and pronounced it the perfect realiza- 
tion of his own beneficent idea, he must have felt the joy of a 
father, the power of a sovereign, and the loftier glory of a 
creator. But such feelings were the result, not the origin, of 
action. Nothing but the desire of communicating good, of 
having other beings to share his own blessedness, could be 
a motive worthy of the Supreme Source of virtue in the pro- 
duction of the universe.'^f 

So ample is the evidence, that all nations have deemed the 
Creator benevolent. The Anglo-Saxon name, ^^ Grod,'^ means 
*^good,'' and the word was originally the same. ^^God," 
says Plato, ^^is beauty and love itself." "All piety would 
cease," says Cicero, "if benevolence were denied to God." 

* R. Watson. f Dr. Croly. 



54 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

Look abroad through all surrounding nature, and behold the 
proofs of your Heavenly Father's love. '^The productive 
powers of the earth are as much beyond all the demands of 
healthful sustenance, as the volume of the atmosphere which 
environs the globe is beyond the capacity of human lungs. 
There is not a mood of body, from the wantonness of health 
to the languor of the death-bed, for which the wonderful 
alchemy of nature does not proffer some luxury to stimulate 
our pleasures, or her pharmacy some catholicon to assuage 
our pains.''* Still more wonderful is the provision made for 
mind. However great our desire of happiness, the Divine 
arrangement for its gratification is greater. So vast and 
various are the gifts of Grod, that he needed an immensity in 
which to display them, and we an immortality in which to 
enjoy them ; and if we have any ground of complaint against 
the Infinite Provider, it is, that in our progressive ascent 
to higher enjoyments, we are obliged to leave so many pure 
and exquisite pleasures behind. 

All the Divine administration is benevolence. Afflictive 
providences are but proofs of love, the tender chastisements 
of a Father, " most merciful when most severe." The ter- 
rible calamities which Heaven appoints or permits, for the 
punishment of wicked communities — war, famine, pestilence, 
— may issue in good to other portions of the human family, 
and yield immense moral benefit to the distant provinces of 
creation. Even the eternal fires which consume both soul 
and body in hell are the effect of love ; and the sinner who 
would not yield to beseeching Mercy, falls a prey to insulted 
Justice, as a warning to other orders of probationary intelli- 
gences, who people myriads of the countless stars. Benevo- 
lence is the all-pervading, all-controlling principle of the 
Divine Providence ; and whatever of suffering may exist in 

* Hon. Horace Mann. 



JEHOVAH INCOMPARABLE. 55 

our little corner of creation^ it only adds to the incalculably 
vaster amount of creature happiness diffused over the immea- 
surable works of God ; every human tear swelling the ocean of 
celestial joy, and every groan of a burdened spirit, heightening 
the anthem of a jubilant universe. 

But the sublimest instance of the Divine Benevolence, as 
of the Divine Wisdom, is seen in the redemption of our race. 
^' God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were 
yet sinners, Christ died for us ','' and by dying procured our 
life — the renewed life of the body from the grave, and the 
beatified life of the soul in heaven — 

'*A truth so strange, 'twere bold to think it true, 
If not far bolder still to disbelieve." 

On the cross of Christ we behold the heart of God laid open 
to the gaze of the universe. Here are Infinite Wisdom and 
Infinite Power cooperating with Infinite Benevolence, for 
the recovery of man's forfeited inheritance of holiness and 
happiness ; Wisdom and Power casting up a highway whereon 
Benevolence may march in triumph through the universe, 
with death and hell chained captives at her chariot-wheels, 
and myriads of ransomed men rejoicing in her train. '' God 
so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life.'' 

" love that passeth knowledge ! words are vain. 
Language is lost in wonder so divine !" 

How gloriously all the Divine perfections are united in 
this amazing scheme ! How beautifully, like the colors of 
the rainbow, they are blended ! How delightfully, like the 
lutes of the seraphim, they are harmonized ! ^^ Mercy and 
Truth are met together; Eighteousness and Peace have 
kissed each other;" and Supreme Majesty rejoices in the 



56 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

embrace of weeping Compassion; and all conceivable attri- 
butes of the Highest Authority and Glory, coalesce and 
incorporate with whatever of moral loveliness is possible even 
to God. 

" 'Tis mystery all : let earth adore ! 
Let angel minds inquire no more !" 

Let us profit by these feeble glances at Jehovah's incom- 
parable grandeur. 

If such is the greatness of God, with what holy fear should 
we utter his name ! with what reverent awe enter his pres- 
ence ! with what solemn delight engage in his worship ! with 
what ineffable gratitude celebrate his condescension ! with 
what raptures of love and joy contemplate our personal inter- 
est in his friendship ! 

If such is the greatness of God, how blessed are they who 
can look up to " the high and holy place,'' and say — " Our 
Father, who art in heaven I" All his perfections are pledged 
to their interest; all his resources are subservient to their 
happiness. He is their " shield and hiding-place :" 

" Their shelter from the stormy blast, 
And their perpetual home." 

"And if children, then heirs — heirs of God, and joint-heirs 
with Jesus Christ." They are ever with him, and all that 
he hath is theirs. " Happy is the people that is in such a 
case ; yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord V 

If such is the greatness of God, alas for his enemies! 
What will they do, when he riseth up ? and when he visiteth, 
what will they answer ? How will they meet an adversary 
whose breath is flame, whose chariot the whirlwind, whose 
artillery the thunder, whose host the marshalled spheres? 
How will they escape his scrutiny, from whom no darkness 
nor shadow of death can hide workers of iniquity ? How 
will they stand in his presence, from whom the heavens and 



JEHOVAH INCOMPARABLE. 57 

the earth shall flee away ? Rocks and mountains ! ye will 
not tarry to shelter the impious ^^ from the face of Him that 
sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb V 

" Be ye reconciled to God ! " He is as great in mercy as 
in might. Approach him penitently, sprinkling yourselves 
with the blood of his covenant ! Then will he smile upon 
you, and call you his children, and delight to do you good ; 
and the devouring fire of his holiness, which now menaces 
the sinner, will melt the heart in its flame, but consume only 
the sin 1 



3* 



58 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 



IV.— DIVINE COMPASSION. 

Mercy has been called ^^ The Darling Attribute of God." 
The propriety of such designation is at least doubtful. All 
the Divine Perfections must be equally dear to their Divine 
Possessor. All are beautifully blended in his moral govern- 
ment. All are delightfully harmonized in his redeeming 
economy. Yet if there is one quality of his character more 
worthy of such preeminence than another, it would seem to 
be this. As fallen creatures, mercy is our greatest need. 
As ransomed sinners, we are placed peculiarly under the 
administration of mercy. To our world, whatever he may do 
to others, Jehovah reveals himself chiefly as " the Merciful 
God." This is the aspect in which he is constantly com- 
mended to our faith and affections. 

"Mercy is his distinguished name, 
And suits the sinner best," 

His power, his wisdom, and his goodness, are proclaimed by 
all the teeming spheres : his mercy is written in the blood of 
his beloved Son. The Scriptures everywhere pronounce him 
holy, just, and true : the prophet affirms, with peculiar em- 
phasis, that "he delighteth in mercy." Indeed, this is a 
theme on which the Sacred Writers often kindle into ecstasies, 
multiplying terms of transcendent significance, with strange 
accumulation of epithets, and tropes which thrill like angel 
utterances, and similes which glow with more than angel 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 59 

splendors ; as if Divine Inspiration were at a loss for language 
adequate to the description — as if the Divine Nature, which 
in all conceivable perfections excels every thing else, did in 
this particular quality excel even itself. One of the most 
remarkable instances is a passage in the hundred and third 
Psalm, where ^Hbe sweet singer of Israel^' magnifies the mercy 
of God by a variety of interesting descriptions, with com- 
parisons the most sublime that creation and immensity can 
furnish, and the most touching that can be drawn from the 
relations of human life : ^' The Lord is merciful and gracious, 
slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always 
chide ; neither will he keep his anger for ever. He hath not 
dealt with us after our sins ; nor rewarded us according to 
our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so 
great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the 
east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgres- 
sions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the 
Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame : 
he remembereth that we are dust.''* For the encouragement 
of the Christian's faith, we propose to illustrate and amplify, 
successively, these several statements of the man of Grod. 

I. The first statement is a very simple one : ^^Thc Lord is 
merciful and gracious,'' 

The term ^^ mercy " is derived from miser Icordia, a com- 
pound of 7?iisera?is-— pitying, and cor — the heart; or miseria- 
cordis — pain of heart. The mercy of Grod, then, is the pity — 
the pain — of his heart, inclining him to pardon the guilty 
and succor the miserable. ^' Grace " is the twin sister of 
mercy. The terms are used interchangeably ; yet there is a 
distinction. Mercy supposes guilt : grace may be exercised 
toward the innocent. Mercy is the remission of punish- 

* Vq. ciii. 8-14. 



60 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

ment — the communication of forgiveness, and consequent 
blessings to such as have violated the law and incurred its 
penalty : grace is simply gratuitous favor — unmerited boun- 
ty — the bestowment of benefits without claim in the recipient. 
Mercy includes grace : grace does not necessarily imply mercy. 
God may be gracious without being merciful : he cannot be 
merciful without being gracious. To angels, he is gracious, 
but not merciful: to men, he is both ^'merciful and gracious." 
These definitions and distinctions furnish us a clue to the 
first attribute of the Divine Mercy. It is not an inert com- 
passion. It is com^municative. It is hounteous. Has not 
our Heavenly Father authorized his children to ask what they 
will, with the assurance that they shall receive? Does he 
not give liberally, and upbraid none ? Is he not more ready 
to give to us, than we to our children — more ready to give 
than we to ask — waiting to be gracious — answering before 
we call, and hearing while we yet speak ? Hearken : ^' My 
God shall supply all your need, according , to his riches in 
glory, by Christ Jesus." Hearken again : He is '^ able to 
make all grace abound toward you," and 'Ho do exceeding 
abundantly above all you ask or think." Hearken once more : 
^' He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us 
all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things ?" 
Having given that unspeakable gift, is any thing else too 
great for him to give — any thing which that unspeakable gift 
was not given to procure for us ? If you needed a world, and 
asked for it in the name of Jesus, it should be laid at your 
feet. '^xVsk, that your joy may be full." What has not 
God given already ? Enumerate his blessings, if you can — 
the personal and the relative — the earthly and the heavenly. 
The catalogue is endless. You might more easily count the 
sands, as they trickle through the hourglass. Classification 
is nearly as difiicult as enumeration. Every breath embraces 
a thousand. Every pulse measures out a million. They 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 61 

multiply every moment — a river always deepening and widen- 
ing — a fountain for ever flowing, yet for ever full. 

II. The second phrase expresses a very affecting modifica- 
tion of the Divine Mercy — '^Slow to anger'.'' 

His '^ charity is not easily provoked.'^ His ^^ long-suffer- 
ing is salvation.'^ He delays punishment, that lie may lead 
to repentance : men pervert the delay into an occasion of 
crime, till he can delay no longer; then he hurls his thunder 
with a backward hand, and an averted face. He always 
warns before he smites ; generally suspends the judgment long 
after the warning; then executes it gradually, and by slow 
degrees, with frequent intervals of indulgence. He punishes 
with regret, takes vengeance with a pitying sigh : — ^^Ah ! I 
will ease me of mine adversaries : I will avenge me of mine 
enemies.'^ Numerous and wonderful are the illustrations in 
Sacred Story : — 

All flesh hath corrupted its way before the Lord. It re- 
pen teth him that he hath made man. It grieveth him at his 
heart. The moral nuisance is too loathsome for the tolerance 
of Heaven. A general deluge is necessary to wash it away. 
The threat of extermination has gone forth. Yet waits the 
long-suffering of God a hundred and twenty years. Not till 
the last means for the reformation of the vicious generation 
has been tried in vain, does the dread catastrophe overtake 
them. 

He has chosen the children of Abraham for his peculiar 
people. He has promised them the land of Canaan for a per- 
petual inheritance. AVhy is the redemption of the pledge 
delayed four hundred and thirty years ? Why must they go 
down into Egypt, and sojourn there two hundred and fifteen 
years, cruelly oppressed by Pharaoh and his task-masters; 
and afterward wander about forty years "in a waste, howling 
wilderness V The iniquity of the aboriginal occupants of the 



62 HEADLANDS OP FAITH, 

promised land is ''not yet full/' There is yet a chance for 
their salvation. Jehovah will not destroy them, even to make 
room for his beloved Israel, so long as there remains any 
probability of their repentance. 

The chosen tribes are on their journey. Ever and anon 
they murmur against Moses, and rebel against the Lord. 
Ever and anon they relapse into the shameful idolatries of 
Egypt. Yet he patiently endures their provocations and 
apostasies. Yet he takes not his Holy Spirit from them, nor 
withdraws the proofs of his loving-kindness, nor suffers his 
faithfulness to fail. The daily supply of manna still falls 
around their encampment. The river from the smitten rock 
still follows their wanderings. The pillar of cloud and fire 
still marches in their van. The Urim and Thummim still 
give out oracular responses. The Shekinah still hovers above 
the mercy-seat. 

The ark is stationary at Shiloh. The people are spread out 
over the hills and vales and plains of Palestine. '' The lines 
are fallen to them in pleasant places : they have a goodly 
heritage. '' The land ''flows with milk and honey." But 
they are the same " stiff-necked and rebellious house." 
Again and again they forget their Redeemer, the Mighty One 
of Jacob. Again and again they forsake his altars, for the 
high places of Ashtaroth and Baal. He hews them by the 
prophets, and chastises them by the heathen. But not till 
they have grieved and vexed him — made him to serve with 
their sins — for fifteen centuries, does he forsake his heritage. 
Not till they have consummated their crimes by the cruci- 
fixion of the Son of Grod, do " the guardian angels of the City 
of David" sing mournfully in the ear of its guilty population, 
" Let us depart hence !" Not till they have spurned the 
proffer of salvation through the very blood which they have 
shed, does the wrath come upon them to the uttermost, deso- 
lating their holy mountain, demolishing their glorious temple, 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 63 

annihilating their national polity, and scattering them in iso- 
lated exile over the face of the earth. 

And how great his patience toward individual delinquents ! 
Why suffered he the first sinner to live nine hundred and 
twenty years, or granted a moment's reprieve to the murderer 
of his brother ? Why did he not cut off Job in his murmur- 
ings, Manasseh in his idolatries, and David in his impurity 
and blood? And why has he borne so long with us — our 
manifold infirmities, our frequent backslidings, our omissions 
of duty, our unfruitfulness in virtue, our slothfulness in his 
service, our oft-repeated insults to his glorious majesty? ^^It 
is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because 
his compassions fail not." What fruitless fig trees — cum- 
berers of the ground ! Yet he has waited on us, how many 
years ! Still he grants us abundant opportunities and facili- 
ties for reformation. He perpetuates and multiplies the means 
of grace and the incentives to piety. Not willing that any 
should perish, he delays to strike. 

"Justice lingers into love." 

III. Does this touch your hearts, or excite your admir- 
ation? Then listen to what follows: — ^^ and plenteous in 
mercy.^' 

Wonderful expression ! Let us analyze and amplify. 
" Mercy" — there is music in that word. How like an angel's 
voice it thrills the human heart ! There is scarcely a term of 
richer import in the vocabulary of any language. Yet even 
this is too poor to express the feelings of our Heavenly Father 
toward his human offspring. The inspired writers adopt a 
variety of expedients to heighten its signification. Sometimes 
they connect an epithet with it — ^' great mercy," ''tender 
mercy," "abundant mercy," ''everlasting mercy." Some- 
times they couple with It another term — " mercy and grace," 



Q^ HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

"mercy and truth," ^^ mercy and goodness/' "mercy and 
loving-kindness." Then they use the plural form — "mer- 
cies," in allusion to the frequency and variety of manifest- 
ation. Then the plural is intensified — "manifold mercies" 
— ^mercies folded within mercies, a thousand contained in one. 
Then enumeration is outdone — " the multitude of his mercies " 
— mercies numberless thronging upon mercies unnumbered — 
a host to which the stars of heaven, multiplied by all their 
beams of light, could scarcely furnish a competent arithmetic. 
The apostle pronounces him " rich in mercy," "' full of 
mercy" — calls him " the Father of mercies," " the G-od of all 
mercies." One of the prophets, laboring with a thought for 
which he can find no adequate expression, exclaims — " 0, 
how great is his mercy !" The royal Psalmist sets his mercy 
"above the heavens," and sings again and again — "His 
mercy endureth for ever." 

But none of these transcends the phrase before us — "plen- 
teous in mercy." A plenty is more than eiiough. The 
Divine Mercy exceeds onr necessity — more than enough for 
all our sins and all our sorrows- After we have been 
pardoned, restored, delivered, comforted, a thousand thou- 
sand times, there is still enough and to spare. Were there 
other fallen worlds to share in the supply — were half the 
countless orbs that float in the far immensity as full of 
guilt and suffering as our own — still there would be an 
abundance for all the wants and all the woes of their unnum- 
bered billions. It is an eternal spring, an ocean without bot- 
tom or bound. An angel's line cannot fathom the abyss : an 
angel's wing cannot compass the infinitude. We stand 
amazed upon the brink, and exclaim, in the language of the 
apostle, " the depth !" 

IV. " Plenteous in mercy," he is profuse in pardon : 
"slow to anger," he is swift to reconciliation : — "J?e will not 
always chide, neither will he keep his anger /or ever.'' 



JEHOVAH INCOMPARABLE. 49 

volence, and the diffusion of his infinite blessedness. And what 
are the means by which he seeks the accomplishment of this 
glorious purpose ? Look abroad over the universe. What an 
endless variety of creatures, organic and inorganic, animate and 
inanimate, rational and irrational, from the pebble to the dia- 
mond, from the mushroom to the magnolia, from the insect to 
the archangel. And the animalcule is as perfect in every part as 
the elephant, and the microscopic particles are as wondrously 
constructed as the stellar orbs. How admirable is the adjust- 
ment of every thing to its place ! how nice the adaptation of 
the several functions to their several spheres ! how perfect the 
arrangement ! how beautiful the gradation ! how harmonious 
the laws which govern ! how manifold and mysterious the re- 
lations of the innumerable parts to the immeasurable whole ! 

Wisdom displays itself in the use of few and simple 
means to secure mani/ and stuj^endous benefits. Here the 
wisdom of God is especially conspicuous. Hear the language 
of an eloquent American writer :* '' The nervous filaments 
of the senses are finer than a spider's thread ; yet they are 
the avenues of communication between the world without and 
the world within. They spread themselves out over a little 
space at the roots of the tongue ; and all the savors of nature 
become tributary to our pleasure. They unfold themselves 
over a little space in the olfactory organs ; and we catch the 
perfumes of all the zones. They are ramified over a little 
space in the hollow of the ear; and the myriad voices of 
nature, from the notes of the mellifluous song-bird to the 
organ-tones of Heaven's cathedral — the thunder, the cataract, 
and the ocean — become our orchestra. They line a spot in 
the interior of the eye, so small that the tip of the finger may 
cover it ; when lo ! the earth and the heavens, to the remotest 
constellations, that seem to glimmer feebly on the confines of 

* Hon. Horace Mann. 



50 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

s^ace, are painted^ quick as thought, iu the chambers of the 
braiu. By these senses we hold connection with all external 
things, as though millions of telegraphic wires were stretched 
from every outward object, and came in converging lines to 
find their focus in our organs, and through these inlets to 
pour their pictures, their odors, and their songs, into the all- 
capacious brain; nay, better than this, for we have the 
picture, the perfume, and the music, without the encumbrance 
of the wires." 

This is but a single instance, in which the means is one, 
and the beneficial results innumerable. A thousand illustra- 
tions might be added. Gravitation is a principle which per- 
vades all matter, holds the terraqueous globe together, attaches 
rocks and buildings to its surface, confines the ocean within 
its limits, governs all locomotion of men and machinery, 
regulates the revolutions of planets and suns, binds myriads 
of worlds into majestic systems, and in many other ways secures 
incalculable good to every part of the universe. The myste- 
rious agent which we call light appears to be a simple prin- 
ciple ; yet it originates all color, imparting endless variety of 
beauty to earth, and of brilliancy to heaven. ^^ One act of 
Divine power,'' says Mr. "Watson, "in giving a certain incli- 
nation to the earth's axis, produced the vicissitude of its 
seasons, gave laws to its temperature, and covered it with in- 
creased variety of productions." The origin of vitality is 
identical in all animals ; and the bird, the bat, and the ser- 
pent, in embryo, are indistinguishable by the most skilful 
naturalist. The germ appears to be the same in the several 
species of plants. A single principle lies at the foundation 
of all organic life; but, coming under difi'erent laws of 
development, produces myriads of forms, functions, and gra- 
dations. In short, a few simple elements, in various com- 
binations, compose the wondrous structure of the material 
universe; and earth, and air, and sea, and stars, are perhaps 



JEHOVAH [ N C O M P A R A B L E . 51 

resolvable into a dozen primary principles. Thus the Divine 
Wisdom, by the fewest and simplest means, secures the 
mightiest and most glorious results. 

In the procedure of his providence, God acts upon the 
same principle: ^'from seeming evil, still educing good;" 
overruling the affairs of empires, ^^ the wrath of men,'^ and the 
rage of hell, so as to make all subserve the purposes of his 
transcendent goodness, the felicity of his immense dominion. 

But the most stupendous of all the displays of Divine Wis- 
dom is furnished in the fact of our redemption. This is the 
amazing scheme into which ^Hhe angels desire to look.^^ 
How could the Universal Lord save the sinful race, without 
prejudice to his own adorable perfections, or injury to other 
orders of his subjects, and other provinces of his empire ? Be- 
hold the Substitute, " God manifest in the flesh. '^ Behold 
the mighty sacrifice, which meets at once the demand of Jus- 
tice and the desire of Mercy. Behold Satan foiled by his own 
subtlety, and defeated by his own malignity; the cross which 
he has reared for Christ made the instrument of his own over- 
throw, and the occasion of eternal triumph to the Crucified. 
The death of Christ was the coronation of the wisdom of God. 

V. There is none like God in the benevolence op his 

CHARACTER. 

Benevolence is good-ioill — the disposition to communicate 
benefit. God must be either benevolent or malevolent. If 
malevolent, he must be miserable, for malevolence always pro- 
duces misery. Moreover, if he were malevolent, there could 
be no happiness in the universe. With infinite power to carry 
out infinite hate, he would make every creature utterly un- 
happy, and every world a hell. But this is not the case. 
Among our own species, sinful as we are, there is manifestly 
more happiness than misery; and, for aught we can tell, earth 
may be the only world that weeps. God, therefore, cannot be 



bZ HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

malevolent ; and if not malevolent, he must be benevolent ; and 
if benevolent, infinitely so, since all his attributes are infinite. 
On this subject, however, he has not left himself without 
witness. The Scriptures are full of his benevolence. "God 
is love;" and this is the most accurate, as well as the most 
comprehensive definition of his nature ever given to the world. 
What heart has not kindled over that most delightful account 
of the Divine character, contained in the proclamation of the 
Divine Name to Moses? — "The Lord, the Lord God, merci- 
ful and gracious, longsufi"ering, and abundant in goodness and 
truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and 
transgression and sin.'^* All these titles and descriptions, 
except the first two, refer to the Divine Benevolence, denot- 
ing diiferent modifications of the same attribute. The Merci- 
ful, Gracious, Loving, LongsuiFering, Bountiful, Faithful, 
Bedeeming, Pardoning God, is, in these several characters, 
only the Benevolent God, manifesting his benevolence accord- 
ing to the difi'erent relations and necessities of his creatures. 
His goodness is not an accidental or occasional affection, 
but one of the essential and invariable glories of his nature, 
of which all his other moral attributes are only so many differ- 
ent modifications. " The Lord is good, and doeth good.'' His 
benevolence is active, diffusive, a fountain for ever overflowing. 
"He delighteth in mercy.'' It is not yielded reluctantly, nor 
imparted indifferently, nor dispensed in stinted measure. It 
flows forth, a plenteous stream, from an eternal source. And 
it is as impartial as it is copious and free. " The Lord is 
good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." 
He exercises his Omnipotence in spreading joy through the 
universe. No corner of his creation is overlooked or neglected. 
His bounty is alike unlimited and inexhaustible. " Like his 
emblem the sun," it has been eloquently said, "which sheds 



* Ex. xxxiv. 6, 7. 



JEHOVAH INCOMPARABLE. 53 

its beams on the surrounding worlds, and enlightens and 
cherishes the whole system, without diminishing in splendor, 
he imparts, without being exhausted; and ever giving, has 
yet infinitely more to give/'* 

Such is the testimony of Scripture. The universe echoes 
the announcement. All nature is vocal with the melody and 
radiant with the glory of the Divine Benevolence. It is 
chanted by every bird of song, exhaled from every flower of 
the field, and reflected in every beam of the daylight. Bene- 
volence was doubtless the motive of creation. What else 
could have actuated the Almighty, in filling the void space 
with ardent existences, and kindling into consciousness my- 
riads of rejoicing spirits ? Could it be the selfish desire of en- 
hancing his own glory and felicity ? These were already in- 
finite. ! was it not the desire of having creatures around 
him, to whom he might communicate something of his own 
infinite blessedness ? " True, other feelings, born of this im- 
pulse, might join in the recompense. When the Almighty 
Maker, pausing from his work, looked forth complacently up- 
on his infant universe, and pronounced it the perfect realiza- 
tion of his own beneficent idea, he must have felt the joy of a 
father, the power of a sovereign, and the loftier glory of a 
creator. But such feelings were the result, not the origin, of 
action. Nothing but the desire of communicating good, of 
having other beings to share his own blessedness, could be 
a motive worthy of the Supreme Source of virtue in the pro- 
duction of the universe."f 

So ample is the evidence, that all nations have deemed the 
Creator benevolent. The Anglo-Saxon name, " Grod,'^ means 
"good,'' and the word was originally the same. "God," 
says Plato, "is beauty and love itself." "All piety would 
cease," says Cicero, "if benevolence were denied to God." 

* R. Watson. f Dr. Croly. 



54 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

Look abroad through all surrounding nature, and behold the 
proofs of your Heavenly Father's love. "The productive 
powers of the earth are as much beyond all the demands of 
healthful sustenance, as the volume of the atmosphere which 
environs the globe is beyond the capacity of human lungs. 
There is not a mood of body, from the wantonness of health 
to the languor of the death-bed, for which the wonderful 
alchemy of nature does not proffer some luxury to stimulate 
our pleasures, or her pharmacy some catholicon to assuage 
our pains.''* Still more wonderful is the provision made for 
mind. However great our desire of happiness, the Divine 
arrangement for its gratification is greater. So vast and 
various are the gifts of God, that he needed an immensity in 
which to display them, and we an immortality in which to 
enjoy them; and if we have any ground of complaint against 
the Infinite Provider, it is, that in our progressive ascent 
to higher enjoyments, we are obliged to leave so many pure 
and exquisite pleasures behind. 

All the Divine administration is benevolence. Afllictive 
providences are but proofs of love, the tender chastisements 
of a Father, " most merciful when most severe.'' The ter- 
rible calamities which Heaven appoints or permits, for the 
punishment of wicked communities — war, famine, pestilence, 
— may issue in good to other portions of the human family, 
and yield immense moral benefit to the distant provinces of 
creation. Even the eternal fires which consume both soul 
and body in hell are the effect of love ; and the sinner who 
would not yield to beseeching Mercy, falls a prey to insulted 
Justice, as a warning to other orders of probationary intelli- 
gences, who people myriads of the countless stars. Benevo- 
lence is the all-pervading, all-controlling principle of the 
Divine Providence ; and whatever of suffering may exist in 

* Hon. Horace Mann. 



JEHOVAH INCOMPARABLE. 55 

our little corner of creation, it only adds to tlie incalculably 
vaster amount of creature happiness diffused over the immea- 
surable works of God ; every human tear swelling the ocean of 
celestial joy, and every groan of a burdened spirit^ heightening 
the anthem of a jubilant universe. 

But the sublimest instance of the Divine Benevolence, as 
of the Divine Wisdom, is seen in the redemption of our race. 
*' God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were 
yet sinners, Christ died for us ;" and by dying procured our 
life — the renewed life of the body from the grave, and the 
beatified life of the soul in heaven — 

"A truth so strange, 'twere bold to think it true, 
If not far bolder still to disbelieve." 

On the cross of Christ we behold the heart of God laid open 
to the gaze of the universe. Here are Infinite Wisdom and 
Infinite Power cooperating with Infinite Benevolence, for 
the recovery of man's forfeited inheritance of holiness and 
happiness ] Wisdom and Power casting up a highway whereon 
Benevolence may march in triumph through the universe, 
with death and hell chained captives at her chariot-wheels, 
and myriads of ransomed men rejoicing in her train. *' God 
so loved the world, that he gave his ouly-begottcn Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life.'' 

*' love that passeth knowledge ! words are vain, 
Language is lost in wonder so divine !" 

How gloriously all the Divine perfections are united in 
this amazing scheme ! How beautifully, like the colors of 
the rainbow, they are blended ! How delightfully, like the 
lutes of the seraphim, they are harmonized ! ^' Mercy and 
Truth are met together; Eighteousness and Peace have 
kissed each other;" and Supreme Majesty rejoices in the 



56 HEADLANDS OF PAITH. 

embrace of weeping Compassion; and all conceivable attri- 
butes of the Highest Authority and Glory, coalesce and 
incorporate with whatever of moral loveliness is possible even 
to God. 

" 'Tis mystery all : let earth adore ! 
Let angel minds inquire no more !" 

Let us profit by these feeble glances at Jehovah's incom- 
parable grandeur. 

If such is the greatness of God, with what holy fear should 
we utter his name ! with what reverent awe enter his pres- 
ence ! with what solemn delight engage in his worship ! with 
what ineffable gratitttde celebrate his condescension ! with 
what raptures of love and joy contemplate our personal inter- 
est in his friendship ! 

If such is the greatness of God, how blessed are they who 
can look up to " the high and holy place,'' and say — '^ Our 
Father, who art in heaven !" All his perfections are pledged 
to their interest; all his resources are subservient to their 
happiness. He is their ^^ shield and hiding-place :" 

" Their shelter from the stormy blast, 
And their perpetual home." 

^'And if children, then heirs — heirs of God, and joint-heirs 
with Jesus Christ." They are ever with him, and all that 
he hath is theirs. " Happy is the people that is in such a 
case ; yea, happy is that people whose God is the Lord !" 

If such is the greatness of God, alas for his enemies! 
What will they do, when he riseth up ? and when he visiteth, 
what will they answer ? How will they meet an adversary 
whose breath is flame, whose chariot the whirlwind, whose 
artillery the thunder, whose host the marshalled spheres? 
How will they escape his scrutiny, from whom no darkness 
nor shadow of death can hide workers of iniquity? How 
will they stand in his presence, from whom the heavens and 



JEHOVAH INCOMPARABLE. 57 

the earth shall flee away ? Rocks and mountains ! ye will 
not tarry to shelter the impious '' from the face of Him that 
sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb V 

'^ Be ye reconciled to God ! " He is as great in mercy as 
in might. Approach him penitently, sprinkling yourselves 
with the blood of his covenant ! Then will he smile upon 
you, and call you his children, and delight to do you good; 
and the devouring fire of his holiness, which now menaces 
the sinner, will melt the heart in its flame, but consume only 
the sin ! 



3* 



58 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 



IV.— DIVINE COMPASSION. 

Mercy has been called " The Darling Attribute of God." 
The propriety of such designation is at least doubtful. All 
the Divine Perfections must be equally dear to their Divine 
Possessor. All are beautifully blended in his moral govern- 
ment. All are delightfully harmonized in his redeeming 
economy. Yet if there is one quality of his character more 
worthy of such preeminence than another, it would seem to 
be this. As fallen creatures, mercy is our greatest need. 
As ransomed sinners, we are placed peculiarly under the 
administration of mercy. To our world, whatever he may do 
to others, Jehovah reveals himself chiefly as " the Merciful 
God." This is the aspect in which he is constantly com- 
mended to our faith and affections. 

"Mercy is his distinguished name, 
And suits the sinner best." 

His power, his wisdom, and his goodness, are proclaimed by 
all the teeming spheres : his mercy is written in the blood of 
his beloved Son. The Scriptures everywhere pronounce him 
holy, just, and true : the prophet affirms, with peculiar em- 
phasis, that ^^he delighteth in mercy." Indeed, this is a 
theme on which the Sacred Writers often kindle into ecstasies, 
multiplying terms of transcendent significance, with strange 
accumulation of epithets, and tropes which thrill like angel 
utterances, and similes which glow with more than angel 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 59 

splendors; as if Divine Inspiration were at a loss for language 
adequate to the description — as if the Divine Nature, which 
in all conceivable perfections excels every thing else, did in 
this particular quality excel even itself. One of the most 
remarkable instances is a passage in the hundred and third 
Psalm, where ^'the sweet singer of IsraeP^ magnifies the mercy 
of God by a variety of interesting descriptions, with com- 
parisons the most sublime that creation and immensity can 
furnish, and the most touching that can be drawn from the 
relations of human life : '' The Lord is merciful and gracious, 
slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always 
chide ; neither will he keep his anger for ever. He hath not 
dealt with us after our sins ; nor rewarded us according to 
our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so 
great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the 
east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgres- 
sions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the 
Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame : 
he remembereth that we are dust.""^ For the encouragement 
of the Christian's faith, we propose to illustrate and amplify, 
successively, these several statements of the man of God. 

I. The first statement is a very simple one : ^^Thc Lord is 
merciful and gracious.'^ 

The term ^^ mercy'' is derived from miser Icordiaj a com- 
pound of miserans — pitying, and cor — the heart; or miseria- 
cordis — pain of heart. The mercy of God, then, is the pity — 
the pain — of his heart, inclining him to pardon the guilty 
and succor the miserable. '' Grace " is the twin sister of 
mercy. The terms are used interchangeably ; yet there is a 
distinction. Mercy supposes guilt : grace may be exercised 
toward the innocent. Mercy is the remission of punish- 

* Ps. ciii. 8-14. 



60 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

ment — the communication of forgiveness, and consequent 
blessings to such as have violated the law and incurred its 
penalty : grace is simply gratuitous favor — unmerited boun- 
ty — the bestowment of benefits without claim in the recipient. 
Mercy includes grace : grace does not necessarily imply mercy. 
Grod may be gracious without being merciful : he cannot be 
merciful without being gracious. To angels, he is gracious, 
but not merciful : to men, he is both ^^ merciful and gracious.^' 
These definitions and distinctions furnish us a clue to the 
first attribute of the Divine Mercy. It is not an inert com- 
passion. It is communicative. It is bounteous. Has not 
our Heavenly Father authorized his children to ask what they 
will, with the assurance that they shall receive? Does he 
not give liberally, and upbraid none? Is he not more ready 
to give to us, than we to our children — more ready to give 
than we to ask — waiting to be gracious — answering before 
we call, and hearing while we yet speak ? Hearken : ^' My 
God shall supply all your need, according to his riches in 
glory, by Christ Jesus." Hearken again : He is " able to 
make all grace abound toward you,'^ and ''to do exceeding 
abundantly above all you ask or think. '^ Hearken once more: 
^'He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us 
all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things ?" 
Having given that unspeakable gift, is any thing else too 
great for him to give — any thing which that unspeakable gift 
was not given to procure for us ? If you needed a world, and 
asked for it in the name of Jesus, it should be laid at your 
feet. '^Ask, that your joy may be full.'' What has not 
Grod given already ? Enumerate his blessings, if you can — 
the personal and the relative — the earthly and the heavenly. 
The catalogue is endless. You might more easily count the 
sands, as they trickle through the hourglass. Classification 
is nearly as difficult as enumeration. Every breath embraces 
a thousand. Every pulse measures out a million. They 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 61 

multiply every moment — a river always deepening and widen- 
ing — a fountain for ever flowing, yet for ever full. 

II. The second phrase expresses a very affecting modifica- 
tion of the Divine Mercy — "Slow to anger.^' 

His " charity is not easily provoked.^^ His " long-suifer- 
ing is salvation." He delays punishment, that he may lead 
to repentance : men pervert the delay into an occasion of 
crime, till he can delay no longer ; then he hurls his thunder 
with a backward hand, and an averted face. He always 
warns before he smites ; generally suspends the judgment long 
after the warning; then executes it gradually, and by slow 
degrees, with frequent intervals of indulgence. He punishes 
with regret, takes vengeance with a pitying sigh : — "Ah ! I 
will ease me of mine adversaries : I will avenge me of mine 
enemies." Numerous and wonderful are the illustrations in 
Sacred Story : — 

All flesh hath corrupted its way before the Lord. It re- 
penteth him that he hath made man. It grieveth him at his 
heart. The moral nuisance is too loathsome for the tolerance 
of Heaven. A general deluge is necessary to wash it away. 
The threat of extermination has gone forth. Yet waits the 
long-sufi"ering of God a hundred and twenty years. Not till 
the last means for the reformation of the vicious generation 
has been tried in vain, does the dread catastrophe overtake 
them. 

He has chosen the children of Abraham for his peculiar 
people. He has promised them the land of Canaan for a per- 
petual inheritance. Why is the redemption of the pledge 
delayed four hundred and thirty years ? Why must they go 
down into Egypt, and sojourn there two hundred and fifteen 
years, cruelly oppressed by Pharaoh and his task-masters; 
and afterward wander about forty years '^in a waste, howling 
wilderness ?" The iniquity of the aboriginal occupants of the 



62 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

promised land is ^^ not yet full.'^ There is yet a chance for 
their salvation. Jehovah will not destroy them, even to make 
room for his beloved Israel, so long as there remains any 
probability of their repentance. 

The chosen tribes are on their journey. Ever and anon 
they murmur against Moses, and rebel against the Lord. 
Ever and anon they relapse into the shameful idolatries of 
Egypt. Yet he patiently endures their provocations and 
apostasies. Yet he takes not his Holy Spirit from them, nor 
withdraws the proofs of his loving-kindness, nor suffers his 
faithfulness to fail. The daily supply of manna still falls 
around their encampment. The river from the smitten rock 
still follows their wanderings. The pillar of cloud and fire 
still marches in their van. The Urim and Thummim still 
give out oracular responses. The Shehinah still hovers above 
the mercy-seat. 

The ark is stationary at Shiloh. The people are spread out 
over the hills and vales and plains of Palestine. ^' The lines 
are fallen to them in pleasant places : they have a goodly 
heritage.^^ The land '^ flows with milk and honey.'' But 
they are the same '^ stiff-necked and rebellious house." 
Again and again they forget their Eedeemer, the Mighty One 
of Jacob. Again and again they forsake his altars, for the 
high places of Ashtaroth and Baal. He hews them by the 
prophets, and chastises them by the heathen. But not till 
they have grieved and vexed him — made him to serve with 
their sins — for fifteen centuries, does he forsake his heritage. 
Not till they have consummated their crimes by the cruci- 
fixion of the Son of Grod, do ^' the guardian angels of the City 
of David" sing mournfully in the ear of its guilty population, 
^^ Let us depart hence !" Not till they have spurned the 
proffer of salvation through the very blood which they have 
shed, does the wrath come upon them to the uttermost, deso- 
lating their holy mountain, demolishing their glorious temple, 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 63 

annihilating their national polity, and scattering them in iso- 
lated exile over the face of the earth. 

And how great his patience toward individual delinquents ! 
Why suffered he the first sinner to live nine hundred and 
twenty years, or granted a moment's reprieve to the murderer 
of his brother ? Why did he not cut off Job in his murmur- 
ings, Manasseh in his idolatries, and David in his impurity 
and blood ? And why has he borne so long with us — our 
manifold infirmities, our frequent backslidings, our omissions 
of duty, our unfruitfulness in virtue, our slothfulness in his 
service, our oft-repeated insults to his glorious majesty ? '^ It 
is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because 
his compassions fail not." What fruitless fig trees — cum- 
berers of the ground ! Yet he has waited on us, how many 
years ! Still he grants us abundant opportunities and facili- 
ties for reformation. He perpetuates and multiplies the means 
of grace and the incentives to piety. Not willing that any 
should perish, he delays to strike. 

"Justice lingers into love." 

III. Does this touch your hearts, or excite your admir- 
ation ? Then listen to what follows : — ^^ and plenteous in 
mercy P 

Wonderful expression ! Let us analyze and amplify. 
'^ Mercy'' — there is music in that word. How like an angel's 
voice it thrills the human heart ! There is scarcely a term of 
richer import in the vocabulary of any language. Yet even 
this is too poor to express the feelings of our Heavenly Father 
toward his human offspring. The inspired writers adopt a 
variety of expedients to heighten its signification. Sometimes 
they connect an epithet with it — "great mercy," "tender 
mercy," "abundant mercy," "everlasting mercy." Some- 
times they couple with it another term — " mercy and grace," 



64 HEADLANDS or FAITH. 

^^ mercy and truth/' "mercy and goodness/' "mercy and 
loving-kindness." Then they use the plural form — "mer- 
cies/' in allusion to the frequency and variety of manifest- 
ation. Then the plural is intensified — "manifold mercies" 
— mercies folded vrithin mercies, a thousand contained in one. 
Then enumeration is outdone — " the multitude of his mercies" 
— mercies numberless thronging upon mercies unnumbered — 
a host to which the stars of heaven, multiplied by all their 
beams of light, could scarcely furnish a competent arithmetic. 
The apostle pronounces him " rich in mercy," " full of 
mercy" — calls him " the Father of mercies," " the Grod of all 
mercies." One of the prophets, laboring with a thought for 
which he can find no adequate expression, exclaims — " 0, 
how great is his mercy !" The royal Psalmist sets his mercy 
"above the heavens," and sings again and again — "His 
mercy endureth for ever." 

But none of these transcends the phrase before us — "plen- 
teous in mercy." A plenty is more than enough. The 
Divine Mercy exceeds our necessity — more than enough for 
all our sins and all our sorrows. After we have been 
pardoned, restored, delivered, comforted, a thousand thou- 
sand times, there is still enough and to spare. Were there 
other fallen worlds to share in the supply — were half the 
countless orbs that float in the far immensity as full of 
guilt and suffering as our own — still there would be an 
abundance for all the wants and all the woes of their unnum- 
bered billions. It is an eternal spring, an ocean without bot- 
tom or bound. An angel's line cannot fathom the abyss : an 
angel's wing cannot compass the infinitude. We stand 
amazed upon the brink, and exclaim, in the language of the 
apostle, " the depth !" 

IV. "Plenteous in mercy," he is profuse in pardon: 
"slow to anger/' he is swift to reconciliation : — "^e will not 
always chide, neither loill he keep 7us anger for ever" 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 65 

Fury is uot in Grod. He cherishes nothing akin to human 
implacability or revenge. He acts as a tender father, chas- 
tening his children for their profit : as a wise, just, and bene- 
volent moral governor, punishing the guilty for the security of 
the innocent, or for their own reformation and salvation. 
The stroke is suspended till it becomes indispensable ; then 
it is sparingly and compassionately inflicted; and as soon 
as the object is accomplished, the rod is removed. "He 
sends sorrow,'^ says Bishop Taylor, " to cure sin, and makes 
affliction the handmaid of grace, and often a single cross 
becomes a double blessing.'^ His angry chidings furnish the 
strongest proof of his loving-kindness. Were he implacable 
and revengeful, he would leave us to our waywardness and our 
wickedness, to fill up the measure of our iniquities unreproved ; 
and then he would pour forth all his indignation at once, 
without mixture of mercy or place of repentance. But he 
loves his disobedient children too well never to chide them — 
pities his rebellious subjects too much never to be angry with 
them. He chides because he loves — is angry because he 
pities. His compassion restrains the impatient thunderbolt, 
and wings the angel of forgiveness. Judgment is his " strange 
work." He always enters upon it reluctantly. He often 
relents in its execution. 

Listen ! He has denounced backsliding Ephraim with 
bitter menaces and maledictions. Ephraim, " chastised as a 
bullock unaccustomed to the yoke," and "confounded for the 
sins of his youth," smites upon his thigh and exclaims, 
" Turn thou me, and I shall be turned, for thou art the 
Lord my God." Jehovah hears the penitent bemoaning 
himself, and answers, as if in soliloquy — "Is Ephraim my 
dear son ? Is he a pleasant child ? For since I spake 
against him, I do earnestly remember him still. Therefore 
my bowels are troubled for him. I will surely have mercy 
upon him, saith the Lord." 



66 HEADLANDS or TAITH. 

Listen again : ^^ How stall I give thee up, Ephraim ? How 
shall I deliver thee, Israel ? How shall I make thee as 
Admah? How shall I set thee as Zeboim? My heart is 
turned within me : my repentings are kindled together. I 
will not return to destroy Ephraim. For I am God, and not 
man — the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee. And I 
will not enter into the city.^' 

Listen once more : " Who is a Grod like unto thee, that 
pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the 
remnant of his heritage ? He retaineth not his anger for 
ever, because he delighteth in mercy. Pie will turn again, 
he will have compassion upon us, he will subdue our iniqui- 
ties, and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the 
sea.^^ 

0, blessed encouragement for the broken heart ! Am I 
guilty — overwhelmed with sin, and shame, and grief, and 
fear ? Trusting in Jesus, I look up through my tears to my 
Heavenly Father. Does he frown upon me ? Does he 
menace me with all his terrors ? 0, no : blessed be his infi- 
nite compassion ! 

" Kindled his relentings are : 
Me he now delights to spare ; 
Cries, How can I give thee up ? 
Lets the lifted thunder drop !" 

V. The experience of his people corroborates this account 
of his mercy : — ^'He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor 
rewarded its according to our iniquities." 

The mercy of Heaven was never measured by human merit, 
nor graduated by human gratitude. Our crimes have been 
many; but when were his blessings few'/ Our crimes have 
been enormous; but when were his blessings small? Our 
crimes have been often repeated ; but when were his blessings 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 67 

withheld ? Our crimes have been fearfully aggravated ; but 
when were his blessings diminished? Our crimes have 
deserved nothing but curses ; but when were they requited 
with any thing but blessings ? 

Every sin — the smallest — deserves hell. It is a violation 
of the most perfect law, an insult to the most glorious majesty, 
ingratitude to the most exuberant beneficence, recklessness of 
the most transcendent interests. It is robbery of God, treason 
against his throne, the crucifixion afresh of his beloved Son. 
One such act might justly banish us from the presence of the 
Lord, and from the glory of his power — might justly bind us 
with the everlasting chain, and envelop us with the unquench- 
able fire. But we have been guilty of derelictions without 
number. You might as easily count the drops that constitute 
the ocean, or the atoms that compose the earth. You might 
more readily calculate the pulsations of your own heart, were 
they quickened a million-fold. 

Think of your sins for a single day. Begin with your 
omissions of duty. But why attempt to particularize ? Are 
you not required to consecrate yourself — soul and body — a 
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, unto God ? And if you 
have withheld all — yourself, your time, your talents, your 
substance, your influence — from Him who, as your Creator, 
Redeemer, Benefactor, and Lord, demands all for his service, 
does it not amount to a distinct act of sacrilege for every 
moment, multiplied by all his claims upon you, and the pro- 
duct multiplied again by all your faculties and facilities for 
glorifying his holy name ? But to this dread indictment you 
must add the positive crimes of which you have been guilty — 
the ungodly actions and utterances — the sinful thoughts, 
motives, tempers, passions, emotions, and afi"ections — difficult 
to classify, impossible to enumerate. Having ascertained the 
sins of a single day, you must multiply the sum by the num- 
ber of days in the year, and the product again by the number 



68 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

of years since your accountability began. God ! it is 
enough to frighten an angel ! Yet all the while Divine bless- 
ings have been descending upon you — free as the air, and 
diffusive as the light — copious as the rain, and constant as 
the dew — exceeding your guilt as much as your guilt exceeds 
your power of calculation or description. Verily, *^ he hath 
not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to 
our iniquities.'' 

YI. Now, the Psalmist rises from simple statement to 
sublime comparison : "As the heaven ts high above the earthy 
so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.'' 

Glorious conception ! Go out in the clear and quiet night, 
and contemplate the stupendous altitude of the starry cope, 
and behold there an emblem of the Divine compassion. The 
sun is ninety-five millions of miles from the earth — a distance 
of which it is impossible to form any adequate conception. 
But let us try. Suppose a railroad from the earth to the sun; 
start a new-born infant for that glorious depot ; let the car 
travel fifty miles an hour, and never pause for passengers or 
supplies ; but the child becomes a man, and the man grows 
old and dies, before he has passed one half the space ; for the 
trip would require two hundred and eighteen years. On the 
outer verge of the solar system is the new-found planet Nep- 
tune : had Adam been endued at his creation with the power 
of traversing the void immensity; had he set forth imme- 
diately for that distant goal ; had he lived till the present 
hour, and proceeded every hour of his life fifty miles; he 
must have been journeying yet, and far short of the end of 
his journey; for it would demand more than six thousand 
years. The fixed stars — so called — are all suns, some of them 
vastly larger than that which rules our day; yet they are so 
remote as to appear but luminous points in the firmament; 
^nd the telescope reveals myriads more, so far beyond as to be 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 69 

utterly invisible to tlie unassisted eye ; and astronomers tell 
us of some, situated at so inconceivable a distance, that ligbt, 
moving at the rate of twelve millions of miles a minute, would 
require five hundred years to travel thence to our terrestrial 
sphere; and it is rationally supposed there may be others, 
from which a solitary ray has never yet reached this planet 
since its creation, and will not for thousands of years to 
come. So high is the heaven above the earth ; yet so great 
is the mercy of the Lord toward them that fear him. 

Impressed with this grand thought, I divest myself of 
materiality, and go forth — a disembodied spirit — to explore 
the vastitude of the universe, that I may be able to form 
some proximate idea of my Heavenly Father's mercy. 
Directing my flight toward some feebly glimmering star that 
seems a lone sentinel on the far outposts of heaven, and 
travelling with the speed of an angel's pinion, I pass the 
limits of the solar system — pass Aldebaran, and the Pleiades 
— on, still on, till the twinkling point at which I aim expands 
into a magnificent orb, larger than a million such as I have 
left. I alight there, and look back for my native planet. It 
is no longer visible. But in the direction whence I came I 
catch the faint scintillations of a scarcely discernible star. 
It is our sun. 0, what a distance I have travelled ! Yet 
so great is the mercy of the Lord toward them that fear 
him. 

Turning my eyes still upward, I see millions on millions of 
stars yet gleaming from afar. I plume my spirit-pinions for 
another flight. I dart forward with the velocity of a sun- 
beam. Reaching another glorious world, I pause again, and 
look behind me. The centre of our system is no longer seen. 
I strain my vision to catch the feeble rays of the sphere from 
which I last departed. How vast the field over which I have 
passed ! Yet so great is the mercy of the Lord toward them 
that fear him. 



70 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

I look up once more. The 'living sapphires'' still gem 
the azure canopy, as numerous as ever. Once more I set 
forth on my interminable journey. I mount with the rapid- 
ity of thought for a thousand years. I exhaust view after 
view : I explore universe after universe. Millions of suns 
succeeding millions spring to light before me, expand into 
majestic spheres as I approach them, wheel off to the right 
and left as I pass, close in upon my path behind me, dwindle 
into mere luminous points, and disappear in the distance. 
Systems upon systems, clusters above clusters, and nebulae 
beyond nebulae, rise like thin specks of haze to my view, and 
grow and brighten into immense fields of stars, which I map 
off into sections, and count by the billion. God ! the 
effort is useless : thy heaven is boundless. Yet so great is thy 
mercy toward them that fear thee. 

It is the opinion of many — not without some reason in the 
developments of modern astronomy — that somewhere in the 
unmeasured altitudes of creation there is a great central 
sphere, whose single mass counterbalances and controls the 
countless myriads of other worlds, and around which all the 
stellar nebulae revolve in harmony for ever. If there is such 
a grand siderial nucleus — such an axis of the universe ; and 
if this is indeed " the third heaven," the throne of Grod, the 
native home of angels, and the place of final rendezvous for 
the redeemed; what a miracle of mercy — 0, what a stupen- 
dous achievement of grace, and triumph of love Divine — to 
bring us — ingrates, outcasts, rebels, worms — hundreds, thou- 
sands, millions, of every nation and every age — ^after so long, 
and dreary, and hopeless an exile — all pardoned, purified, 
renovated, immortalized, and glorious as the angels of God — 
to join the general assembly and Church of the first-born 
amid the blissful immunities of that better world ! Yet so 
great — mystery transcending marvel! — so great is the 
mercy of the Lord toward them that fear him. 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 71 

VII. The Psalmist recurs to the experience of his people 
in another comparison, scarcely less sublime than the prece- 
ding: — ^^Asfai' as the east is from the 2vest, so far hath he 
removed our transgressions from us J' 

The vagueness of the expression adds vastness to the idea. 
The figure denotes infinitude. The east is immeasurably 
remote from the west. The circumference of the earth is not 
its metre. The circuit of the sun is not its boundary. The 
stars that twinkle a billion of leagues beyond the rising sun 
are in the east, and the constellations that glow as far beyond 
the setting sun are in the west. There is no limit. Yet so 
far hath the Lord removed our transgressions from us. 

He hath removed their guilt. It pressed upon us like a 
superincumbent mountain. The curse of the violated law 
roared around us like the deep and angry voices of the tem- 
pest. We felt ourselves '^children of wrath. ^^ We trem- 
bled at the thought of falling "into the hands of the Living 
God." But we looked to Calvary : our fears subsided : our 
burden rolled away : Sinai ceased to flame and thunder ; and 
now, "being justified by faith, we have peace with Grod, 
through our Lord Jesus Christ.'^ 

He hath removed i\Leu poioer. They were our tyrants and 
our task-masters. They ruled us with an absolute and cruel 
despotism. No Egyptian or Assyrian bondage involved such 
degradation and misery. We had no strength to resist. The 
judgment and the conscience remonstrated; but the will and 
the affections submitted. The law of Grod found its antago- 
nist in our " members.'^ We groaned, wrestled, agonized in 
vain. But Mercy heard our cries, and came to our relief: 
dethroned the tyrants, and liberated the captives ; and now, 
"being made free from sin, and become the servants of 
righteousness, we have our fruit unto holiness, and the end 
everlasting life." 

He hath removed their pollution. " We are washed, we 



72 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

are sanctified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the 
Spirit of our God.'^ "A new heart/' " a clean heart/' has 
been created within us. The evil passions are subdued. The 
nest of ravens and vultures has become an assemblage of 
swans and doves. We live by faith, walk in the Spirit, and 
'Hhe blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin." Our Azazel 
hath borne our transgressions away into the land of forgetful- 
ness. Jehovah hath cast them behind his back, into the 
depths of the sea, promising to remember them against us no 
more. As the sun, rising in the east, drives the shades before 
him to the west, so the Divine Mercy hath exterminated our 
sins. Our moral night is gone, and now are we light in the 
Lord. And if we follow on to know the Lord, our orient 
dawn shall brighten to perfect day, and grace shall soon be 
crowned with glory, and the distance of hell from heaven 
shall measure the removal of our transgressions from us. 

VIII. Having explored immensity without finding an ade- 
quate similitude, the Psalmist now enters the family, and 
draws a most touching illustration from the paternal heart : — 
'^ Like as a father jpitieth Ms children, so the Lord pitieth 
them that fear him.'' 

Behold that feeble old man, with the careworn and sorrow- 
ful countenance, bending over the couch of that fair young in- 
valid : now pillowing her throbbing temples upon his bosom : 
now bathing her fevered brow with his tears ; and night after 
night, in weariness and pain, watching the stars out in minis- 
trations of love. That wasted sufi'erer is the old man's daugh- 
ter. Her mother is no more. Brother or sister she has 
none. He alone lives to care for her; and the feehngs of 
mother, and brother, and sister, and father, throb in his 
single heart. Trusting sufferer, '^ so the Lord pitieth them 
that fear him," 

There is a sullen and refractory boy. From infancy his 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 65 

Fury is not in God. He cherishes nothing akin to human 
implacability or revenge. He acts as a tender father, chas- 
tening his children for their profit : as a wise, just, and bene- 
volent moral governor, punishing the guilty for the security of 
the innocent, or for their own reformation and salvation. 
The stroke is suspended till it becomes indispensable ; then 
it is sparingly and compassionately inflicted; and as soon 
as the object is accomplished, the rod is removed. "He 
sends sorrow,'' says Bishop Taylor, " to cure sin, and makes 
affliction the handmaid of grace, and often a single cross 
becomes a double blessing." His angry chidings furnish the 
strongest proof of his loving-kindness. Were he implacable 
and revengeful, he would leave us to our waywardness and our 
wickedness, to fill up the measure of our iniquities unreproved ; 
and then he would pour forth all his indignation at once, 
without mixture of mercy or place of repentance. But he 
loves his disobedient children too well never to chide them — 
pities his rebellious subjects too much never to be angry with 
them. He chides because he loves — is angry because he 
pities. His compassion restrains the impatient thunderbolt, 
and wings the angel of forgiveness. Judgment is his " strange 
work.'' He always enters upon it reluctantly. He often 
relents in its execution. 

Listen ! He has denounced backsliding Ephraim with 
bitter menaces and maledictions. Ephraim, '' chastised as a 
bullock unaccustomed to the yoke," and "confounded for the 
sins of his youth," smites upon his thigh and exclaims, 
" Turn thou me, and I shall be turned, for thou art the 
Lord my God." Jehovah hears the penitent bemoaning 
himself, and answers, as if in soliloquy — "Is Ephraim my 
dear son ? Is he a pleasant child ? For since I spake 
against him, I do earnestly remember him still. Therefore 
my bowels are troubled for him. I will surely have mercy 
upon him, saith the Lord." 



66 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

Listen again : " How sliall I give thee up, Ephraim ? How 
shall I deliver thee, Israel ? How shall I make thee as 
Admah ? How shall I set thee as Zeboim ? My heart is 
turned within me : my repentings are kindled together. I 
will not return to destroy Ephraim. For I am God, and not 
man — the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee. And I 
will not enter into the city.^^ 

Listen once more : " Who is a God like unto thee, that 
pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the 
remnant of his heritage ? He retaineth not his anger for 
ever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, 
he will have compassion upon us, he will subdue our iniqui- 
ties, and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the 
sea.^^ 

0, blessed encouragement for the broken heart ! Am I 
guilty — overwhelmed with sin, and shame, and grief, and 
fear ? Trusting in Jesus, I look up through my tears to my 
Heavenly Father. Does he frown upon me ? Does he 
menace me with all his terrors ? 0, no : blessed be his infi- 
nite compassion ! 

" Kindled his relentings are : 
Me he now delights to spare : 
Cries, How can I give thee up ? 
Lets the lifted thunder drop !" 

y. The experience of his people corroborates this account 
of his mercy : — ^^He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor 
rewarded us according to our iniquities J' 

The mercy of Heaven was never measured by human merit, 
nor graduated by human gratitude. Our crimes have been 
many; but when were his blessings few'/ Our crimes have 
been enormous ; but when were his blessings small? Our 
crimes have been often repeated ; but when were his blessings 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 67 

withheld ? Our crimes have been fearfully aggravated ; but 
when were his blessings diminished? Our crimes have 
deserved nothing but curses ; but when were they requited 
with any thing but blessings ? 

Every sin — the smallest — deserves hell. It is a violation 
of the most perfect law, an insult to the most glorious majesty, 
ingratitude to the most exuberant beneficence, recklessness of 
the most transcendent interests. It is robbery of Grod, treason 
against his throne, the crucifixion afresh of his beloved Son. 
One such act might justly banish us from the presence of the 
Lord, and from the glory of his power — might justly bind us 
with the everlasting chain, and envelop us with the unquench- 
able fire. But we have been guilty of derelictions without 
number. You might as easily count the drops that constitute 
the ocean, or the atoms that compose the earth. You might 
more readily calculate the pulsations of your own heart, were 
they quickened a million-fold. 

Think of your sins for a single day. Begin with your 
omissions of duty. But why attempt to particularize ? Are 
you not required to consecrate yourself — soul and body — a 
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, unto God ? And if you 
have withheld all — yourself, your time, your talents, your 
substance, your influence — from Him who, as your Creator, 
Redeemer, B(?nefactor, and Lord, demands all for his service, 
does it not amount to a distinct act of sacrilege for every 
moment, multiplied by all his claims upon you, and the pro- 
duct multiplied again by all your faculties and facilities for 
glorifying his holy name? But to this dread indictment you 
must add the positive crimes of which you have been guilty — 
the ungodly actions and utterances — the sinful thoughts, 
motives, tempers, passions, emotions, and affections — difficult 
to classify, impossible to enumerate. Having ascertained the 
sins of a single day, you must multiply the sum by the num- 
ber of days in the year, and the product again by the number 



68 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

of years since your accountability began. God ! it is 
enough to frighten an angel ! Yet all the while Divine bless- 
ings have been descending upon you — free as the air, and 
diffusive as the light — copious as the rain, and constant as 
the dew — exceeding your guilt as much as your guilt exceeds 
your power of calculation or description. Verily, ^^ he hath 
not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to 
our iniquities.'^ 

YI. Now, the Psalmist rises from simple statement to 
sublime comparison : "As the heaven is high above the earth, 
so great is his mercy toward them that fear himJ' 

Glorious conception ! Go out in the clear and quiet night, 
and contemplate the stupendous altitude of the starry cope, 
and behold there an emblem of the Divine compassion. The 
sun is ninety-five millions of miles from the earth — a distance 
of which it is impossible to form any adequate conception. 
But let us try. Suppose a railroad from the earth to the sun; 
start a new-born infant for that glorious depot ; let the car 
travel fifty miles an hour, and never pause for passengers or 
supplies ; but the child becomes a man, and the man grows 
old and dies, before he has passed one half the space ; for the 
trip would require two hundred and eighteen years. On the 
outer verge of the solar system is the new-found planet Nep- 
tune : had Adam been endued at his creation with the power 
of traversing the void immensity; had he set forth imme- 
diately for that distant goal ; had he lived till the present 
hour, and proceeded every hour of his life fifty miles; he 
must have been journeying yet, and far short of the end of 
his journey; for it would demand more than six thousand 
years. The fixed stars — so called — are all suns, some of them 
vastly larger than that which rules our day ; yet they are so 
remote as to appear but luminous points in the firmament; 
4ind the telescope reveals myriads more, so far beyond as to be 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 69 

utterly invisible to the unassisted eye ; and astronomers tell 
us of some, situated at so inconceivable a distance, that light, 
moving at the rate of twelve millions of miles a minute, would 
require five hundred years to travel thence to our terrestrial 
sphere; and it is rationally supposed there may be others, 
from which a solitary ray has never yet reached this planet 
since its creation, and will not for thousands of years to 
come. So high is the heaven above the earth ; yet so great 
is the mercy of the Lord toward them that fear him. 

Impressed with this grand thought, I divest myself of 
materiality, and go forth — a disembodied spirit — to explore 
the vastitude of the universe, that I may be able to form 
some proximate idea of my Heavenly Father's mercy. 
Directing my flight toward some feebly glimmering star that 
seems a lone sentinel on the far outposts of heaven, and 
travelling with the speed of an angel's pinion, I pass the 
limits of the solar system — pass Aldebaran, and the Pleiades 
— on, still on, till the twinkling point at which I aim expands 
into a magnificent orb, larger than a million such as I have 
left. I alight there, and look back for my native planet. It 
is no longer visible. But in the direction whence I came I 
catch the faint scintillations of a scarcely discernible star. 
It is our sun. 0, what a distance I have travelled ! Yet 
so great is the mercy of the Lord toward them that fear 
him. 

Turning my eyes still upward, I see millions on millions of 
stars yet gleaming from afar. I plume my spirit-pinions for 
another flight. I dart forward with the velocity of a sun- 
beam. Reaching another glorious world, I pause again, and 
look behind me. The centre of our system is no longer seen. 
I strain my vision to catch the feeble rays of the sphere from 
which I last departed. How vast the field over which I have 
passed ! Yet so great is the mercy of the Lord toward them 
that fear him. 



70 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

I look up once more. The ^'living sapphires" still gem 
the azure canopy, as numerous as ever. Once more I set 
forth on my interminable journey. I mount with the rapid- 
ity of thought for a thousand years. I exhaust view after 
view : I explore universe after universe. Millions of suns 
succeeding millions spring to light before me, expand into 
majestic spheres as I approach them, wheel oif to the right 
and left as I pass, close in upon my path behind me, dwindle 
into mere luminous points, and disappear in the distance. 
Systems upon systems, clusters above clusters, and nebulae 
beyond nebulae, rise like thin specks of haze to my view, and 
grow and brighten into immense fields of stars, which I map 
oif into sections, and count by the billion. God ! the 
effort is useless : thy heaven is boundless. Yet so great is thy 
mercy toward them that fear thee. 

It is the opinion of many — not without some reason in the 
developments of modern astronomy — that somewhere in the 
unmeasured altitudes of creation there is a great central 
sphere, whose single mass counterbalances and controls the 
countless myriads of other worlds, and around which all the 
stellar nebulae revolve in harmony for ever. If there is such 
a grand siderial nucleus — such an axis of the universe ; and 
if this is indeed '^ the third heaven,^' the throne of God, the 
native home of angels, and the place of final rendezvous for 
the redeemed ; what a miracle of mercy — 0, what a stupen- 
dous achievement of grace, and triumph of love Divine — to 
bring us — ingrates, outcasts, rebels, worms — hundreds, thou- 
sands, millions, of every nation and every age — after so long, 
and dreary, and hopeless an exile — all pardoned, purified, 
renovated, immortalized, and glorious as the angels of God — 
to join the general assembly and Church of the first-born 
amid the blissful immunities of that better world ! Yet so 
great — mystery transcending marvel! — so great is the 
mercy of the Lord toward them that fear him. 



DIVINE COMPASSION, 71 

VII. The Psalmist recurs to the experience of his people 
in another comparison, scarcely less subKme than the prece- 
ding: — ^^ As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he 
removed our transgressions from us.^' 

The vagueness of the expression adds vastness to the idea. 
The figure denotes infinitude. The east is immeasurably 
remote from the west. The circumference of the earth is not 
its metre. The circuit of the sun is not its boundary. The 
stars that twinkle a billion of leagues beyond the rising sun 
are in the east, and the constellations that glow as far beyond 
the setting sun are in the west. There is no limit. Yet so 
far hath the Lord removed our transgressions from us. 

He hath removed their guilt. It pressed upon us like a 
superincumbent mountain. The curse of the violated law 
roared around us like the deep and angry voices of the tem- 
pest. We felt ourselves '^children of wrath." We trem- 
bled at the thought of falling " into the hands of the Living 
God.''^ But we looked to Calvary : our fears subsided : our 
burden rolled away : Sinai ceased to flame and thunder ; and 
now, " being justified by faith, we have peace with God, 
through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

He hath removed their ^oi^er. They were our tyrants and 
our task-masters. They ruled us with an absolute and cruel 
despotism. No Egyptian or Assyrian bondage involved such 
degradation and misery. We had no strength to resist. The 
judgment and the conscience remonstrated; but the will and 
the affections submitted. The law of God found its antago- 
nist in our '' members." We groaned, wrestled, agonized in 
vain. But Mercy heard our cries, and came to our relief: 
dethroned the tyrants, and liberated the captives ; and now, 
/'being made free from sin, and become the servants of 
righteousness, we have our fruit unto holiness, and the end 
everlasting life." 

He hath removed their pollution. ' " We are washed, we 



72 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

are sanctified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the 
Spirit of our Grod/' "A new heart/' " a clean heart/' has 
been created within us. The evil passions are subdued. The 
nest of ravens and vultures has become an assemblage of 
swans and doves. We live by faith, walk in the Spirit, and 
" the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin.'' Our Azaze.l 
hath borne our transgressions away into the land of forgetful- 
ness. Jehovah hath cast them behind his back, into the 
depths of the sea, promising to remember them against us no 
more. As the sun, rising in the east, drives the shades before 
him to the west, so the Divine Mercy hath exterminated our 
sins. Our moral night is gone, and now are we light in the 
Lord. And if we follow on to know the Lord, our orient 
dawn shall brighten to perfect day, and grace shall soon be 
crowned with glory, and the distance of hell from heaven 
shall measure the removal of our transgressions from us. 

VIII. Having explored immensity without finding an ade- 
quate similitude, the Psalmist now enters the family, and 
draws a most touching illustration from the paternal heart : — 
^^ Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth 
them that fear him." 

Behold that feeble old man, with the careworn and sorrow- 
ful countenance, bending over the couch of that fair young in- 
valid : now pillowing her throbbing temples upon his bosom : 
now bathing her fevered brow with his tears ; and night after 
night, in weariness and pain, watching the stars out in minis- 
trations of love. That wasted sufferer is the old man's daugh- 
ter. Her mother is no more. Brother or sister she has 
none. He alone lives to care for her; and the feelings of 
mother, and brother, and sister, and father, throb in his 
single heart. Trusting sufferer, '^ so the Lord pitieth them 
that fear him." 

There is a sullen and refractory boy. From infancy his 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 78 

obstinacy and intractableness have been plied witb gentle 
dissuasives and mild remonstrances, such as none but a parent 
could employ. Occasionally the father has resorted to the 
more painful expedients of rebuke, and threatening, and a 
moderate use of the rod. But all his counsels and correctives 
have hitherto failed to 

"bend or break 

The iron sinew in his neck." 

Now he resolves on severer discipline. But the lad arrests 
the lifted hand, by humble confessions, and fair promises, and 
penitential tears. A hundred times, in compassion to his 
pleading child, has the father refrained and forgiven ; yet a 
hundred times has the offence been repeated. Will it be 
otherwise now, if the delinquent is spared ? So would the 
father fain persuade himself. His heart melts at the tears of 
his son, and the purposed punishment becomes an affectionate 
caress. Penitent offender, ^'so the Lord pitieth them that 
fear him.'' 

Here comes the prodigal. Years ago he received his por- 
tion, and went into a far country, and squandered in profligate 
indulgence all that he had. Reduced to the last extremity 
of indigence, he degraded himself to the condition of a hire- 
ling swineherd, and envied the very beasts their fare. Fa- 
mishing, and naked, and heart-broken, he resolves on return- 
ing to his father. Will that father receive a son who has so 
debased himself and dishonored his family ? Surely he will 
not be very cordial, he will meet him with somewhat of re- 
serve, even if he admits the ingrate to his house. Lo ! he 
sees him coming, and his heart yearns for the wretched child. 
He runs to meet him; falls upon his neck; covers him with 
kisses, and blessings, and prayers; calls for the robe, the 
shoes, the ring, the fatted calf, and the merry-making dance 
and song. Poor contrite heart, " so the Lord pitieth them 
that fear him." 
4 



/4 HEADLANDS OF FAIT IT. 

IX. And why? What is there in us to excite his paternal 
commiseration ? Nothing but our helpless frailty, our ina- 
bility to bear our heavy burdens of sin and sorrow : — " For 
he knoweth our frame : he rememhereth that we are dust." 

Admirable reason for infinite compassion ! He cannot be 
ignorant of the frame which he originally constructed, and 
subsequently sentenced to decay. He cannot forget that we 
are dust — dust by constitution, and dust by doom. But the 
fact which renders us so unworthy of his mercy, is the very 
fact that elicits the exercise of his mercy. The circumstance 
which might be supposed to make him indifferent to our ma- 
nifold wants and woes, is the very circumstance which attracts 
his gracious attention, and fixes his compassionate regards. 
He loves us for our very miseries. He sees our feebleness — 
how little we can do, and therefore is moderate in his exac- 
tions. He sees our frailty — how little we can endure, and 
therefore is sparing in his inflictions. He sees our guilt and 
ruin, and therefore provides means that his banished ones be 
not expelled from him. He beholds us withering as grass, 
and perishing as the flower of the field ; and therefore proffers 
us the boon of life eternal, and in the person of our adorable 
Redeemer gives us the promise and the pledge of our reani- 
mation from the ashes of the sepulchre. 

Ah ! how much he sees in us to pity, and how wonderfully 
his pity helps our misery ! He pities our ignorance, and in- 
structs us. He pities our errors, and corrects us. He pities 
our fearfulness, and encourages us. He pities our despond- 
ency, and reassures us. Are we tempted ? his pity succors 
us ) persecuted ? his pity defends us ; burdened ? his pity 
sustains us ; wavering ? his pity confirms us ; wandering ? 
his pity recalls us; warring? his pity is our ally; wounded ? 
his pity is our surgeon ; conquered ? his pity comes to our 
rescue ; dying ? his pity opens paradise to the departing soul; 
buried, and decayed, and forsrotten, and the epitaph oblite- 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 75 

rated, and the monument mouldered down, and the little 
mound effaced from the earth, and the place of our repose 
unknown to all the living ? yet hath he a desire to the work 
of his hands, 

"And ever from the skies 
Looks down and watches all our dust 

Till he shall bid it rise ! " 

But let us be sure that we sustain the character personally 
interested in this delightful view of the Divine mercy. There 
is danger of applying indiscriminately to mankind all that the 
Scriptures say about the compassion and fatherhood of God, 
not discerning between the righteous and the wicked — be- 
tween him that serveth God and him that serveth him not. 
But we must not forget that God is a discriminator of charac- 
ters, though not a respecter of persons. He hateth the work- 
ers of iniquity, and cannot be indifferent to his own image 
in his saints. He is good to all, and his tender mercies are 
over all his works; but those who fear him enjoy a peculiar 
interest in his loving-kindness. His mercy is modijQed ac- 
cording to the different characters of its several recipients. 
He is merciful to the unrighteous and the evil, freights the 
sun and the shower with blessings alike for the just and for 
the unjust, and sends the offer of a free salvation to all the 
world and to every creature ; but his choicest, richest, sweet- 
est mercies — his pardoning, purifying, renovating mercies — 
his paternal love, and constant fellowship, and peace that 
passeth all understanding and joy unspeakable and full of glory, 
that triumphs over death, and shouts amid dissolving worlds — 
these are reserved peculiarly for " them that fear him." 

Is such your character ? Then " trust ye in the Lord for 
ever." The Divine mercy is everlasting — the same now as 
when it saved the bloodthirsty blasphemer of Tarsus, or pro- 
mised Paradise to the penitent upon the cross — the same as 
when Isaiah discoursed so divinelv of its future incarnation, 



76 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

or David celebrated its achievements in strains of seraphic 
psalmody — the same as when Jehovah proclaimed his name 
to the Jewish lawgiver — as when he established his covenant 
with the Father of the faithful — as when he flung his bow 
of promise over the retiring waters of the deluge — as when 
he shed the morning light of redemption over the blighted 
bloom of Eden. The dispensations change — the Patriarchal 
yielding to the Mosaic, the Mosaic introducing the Christian ; 
but the character of God, and the principles of his moral 
government, and the gracious relations which he sustains 
toward the penitent and the pious — these are "the same, 
yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.'' Surely, goodness and 
mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives, even as the 
living waters followed the chosen tribes in the wilderness. 
And death, though it freeze the vital current in our veins, 
shall not intercept the rivers of Divine Love. They shall 
still flow on — deeper and broader — during the blissful years 
of Paradise. Then shall come the grand denouement, when 
God shall crown his countless favors with everlasting mercy. 
He shall call, and the holy sleepers of six thousand years 
shall awake to a deathless life, and the flowers that faded in 
Eden shall bloom anew in Eternity. 

But if you fear not God, you have personally no part nor 
lot in the matter. God hath other attributes than mercy, and 
all his attributes harmonize in his administration. None of 
them is sacrificed to mercy — none obscured by mercy — none 
thrown into the background for the more conspicuous display 
of mercy. All meet together at the Throne, and kiss each 
other at the Cross. The various colors are not more beauti- 
fully blended in the solar beam. The several parts are not 
more delightfully adjusted in a perfect harmony. 

"A God all mercy, were a God unjust." 

But he is just, as well as merciful, and cannot acquit the 



DIVINE COMPASSION. 77 

guilty. He is holy, as well as merciful, and cannot be recon- 
ciled to sin. He is true and faithful, and his threatenings as 
well as his promises must be fulfilled. He is as much obliged 
to punish the incorrigible as he is inclined to pardon the peni- 
tent. Refusing the terms of forgiveness, you must take the 
penalty of guilt. The day is coming when all the severer 
attributes shall rise up to avenge insulted Mercy. Beware, 
I beseech you, of that day ! 

"For justice to judgment shall call, 
And who shall theii* coming abide, 
When wrath the most fearful of all — 
The wrath of the Lamb — is defied !" 



78 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 



v.— THE WORD INCARNATE. 

Nothing can be more important to a Christian than proper 
views of the Person of Christ. This subject sustains a vital 
relation to the economy of heaven in the redemption of earth ; 
and it is not difficult to see how our opinions here must influ- 
ence our faith, worship, and obedience. It is indeed a capital 
point; in which if we err, we are likely to mistake the way 
of salvation, and peril our hopes of immortality. 

The Scriptures teach us that in the Person of the Redeemer 
God and man are united ; that the Eternal Logos has taken 
into mysterious junction with himself our inferior nature, with 
all its attributes, and all its infirmities, except its sinfulness, 
which he could not assume without ceasing to be Divine. The 
doctrine resolves itself into three propositions : — That Christ 
is Godj That Christ is Man, and That Christ is God and 
Man united in one Person. These propositions we proceed 
to establish. 

I. Christ is God. 

The Arians held his superiority to all creatures, but his in- 
feriority to God; his existence before the universe, but not 
coeternally with the Father. The 8ocinians believed that he 
had no being previous to his being in the flesh ; that he was 
a mere man, and superior to other men only in sanctity and 
in office. The modern Unitarians embrace, some one of these 



T H E W O R D I N C A R N A T E . 79 

opiaions, and some the other; but all reject the doctrine of 
two natures in Christ, and regard him as less than God. 
What is the inspired testimony ? 

The Scriptures teach us that Christ existed in heaven he- 
fore he appeared on earth. Tell us, ye who deny his Di- 
vinity, how could he be before John the Baptist, who was by 
several months his senior ? How could he be the '^ Root^^ 
and the "Lord" of David, who died more than a thousand 
years before his birth ? How could he truthfully affirm his 
priority to Abraham, who had slept in the cave of Machpelah 
nearly two thousand years ? What means the declaration of 
John — '' In the beginning was the Word ;" and the declara- 
tion of Micah — "His goings forth have been from of old, 
from everlasting?" What means his own language, where he 
speaks of the glory which he had with the Father "before 
the foundation of the world ;" and where he speaks of ascend- 
ing up " where he was before," and whence he " came down ?" 
How is all this to be understood, if Christ is not truly Divine? 

The Scriptures apply to him Divine names and titles. In 
the Old Testament he is called "Jehovah Grod," "Jehovah 
of Hosts," " Jehovah our Righteousness," " The Mighty Grod 
and the Everlasting Father." In the New Testament, he is 
caUed " The True God," " The Great God," " The Only Wise 
God," " God blessed for ever," and " God manifest in the 
flesh." In both Testaments he is called '^Emmanuel, God 
with us." These are names never given to men, or angels, 
or any other creature ; yet they are applied to Christ in their 
obvious and proper import, and without restriction, rendering 
his Godhead an unquestionable verity. 

The Scriptures accord to him the attributes of Supreme 
Divinity. He is Eternal, Immutable, Omnipresent, Omni- 
scient, and Almighty. These are natural perfections of God. 
None but God ever possessed them. God could not transfer 
them to another, without deifying him, and undeifying him- 



80 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

self. Yet they are distinctly predicated of Christ. How is 
it that he appropriates the very language which God employs 
to express his own infinite glories, and that the same language 
is applied to him by inspired men, unless he is truly Grod ? 

The Scriptures ascribe to him the loorks peculiar to the Al- 
mighty. "Whatsoever things the Father doeth, these doeth 
the Son likewise/^ Such are his own words. The apostle 
declares that " He who made all things is Grod ;" but the 
evangelist affirms that all things were made by Christ ; and 
there is no way of reconciling the two statements, but by ad- 
mitting that Christ is Grod. Saint Paul says that " all things 
were created by him and for him,'^ and that " he upholdeth 
all things by the word of his power.'^ While on earth, he 
wrought miracles, and forgave sins ; and that in his own name 
and by his own energy. He inspired the prophets that sang 
of his advent, and commissioned the Comforter that applies 
his salvation. He will raise the dead, judge the world, and 
renovate heaven and earth. All these are inalienable prero- 
gatives of the Supreme ; yet they are unequivocally claimed 
by Christ, and freely accorded to him by the sacred writers, 
furnishing conclusive evidence of *' his Eternal Power and 
Godhead.'^ 

The Scriptures represent him as receiving the worship to 
which God alone is entitled. His apostles frequently paid 
him Divine homage, and he never reproved or prohibited 
them. The enemies of the primitive Christians accused them 
of worshipping "one Jesus who was crucified.^' Saul had 
authority from the chief priests to apprehend " all who called 
upon the name of Jesus,'^ and Paul addressed an epistle " to 
all who in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our 
Lord.^' Christ is praised in the apostolic doxologies, and 
appealed to in the apostolic benedictions. The hosts of 
heaven ascribe to him, jointly and equally with God the 
Father, "power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and 



THE WORD INCARNATE. 81 

honor, and glory, and blessing." And such worship is ren- 
dered to him in accordance with the published will of God 
the Father, who hath commanded all the angels to worship 
him, and given him a name for which he challenges the hom- 
age of every knee and the adoration of every tongue. If 
Christ is not God, then most of the Church on earth, and all 
of the Church in heaven, are guilty of idolatry. 

The Scriptures maintain his claim to an eqiiality and iden- 
tity tvith God. '' I and my Father are one.'' " He that 
hath seen me hath seen the Father.'' ^' I am in the Father, 
and the Father in me." " All things which the Father hath 
are mine." These are his claims. Hear how they are ac- 
corded to him by the holy writers : — '' The Word was God." 
'^ He is the image of the invisible God." '^ He is the bright- 
ness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his per- 
son." ^' He was in the form of God, and thought it not 
robbery to be equal with God." " In him dwelleth all the 
fulness of the Godhead bodily." Language could say no 
more. To be like God, equal to God, in the form of God, in 
the image of God, possessed of the fulness of God, is to have 
the attributes of God, and to have the attributes of God is to 
be God. If Christ be not God, there is no God revealed in 
the Bible. If Christ be not God, the Bible is the most decep- 
tive book in the world. If Christ be not God, the authors of 
the Gospels and the Epistles could not have expressed them- 
selves more delusively if they had made it their studious 
endeavor. If Christ be not God, either the New Testament 
writers were not Divinely inspired, or they were inspired to 
write falsehood, and enabled to work miracles in its confirm- 
ation. 

Our faith in the Divinity of Christ is corroborated by the 

testimony of the ancient Jewish Church. The Hebrew writers 

of antiquity, without any other evidence than that which they 

gleaned from the Old Testament prophecies, regarded their 

4* 



82 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

expected Messiah as a Divine Person, and spoke of him in 
language indicating an unquahfied belief in his Godhead. In 
proof of this position we might quote the Jerusalem Targum, 
Philo of Alexandria, and other Jewish authorities before the 
birth of Christ. This fact confirms our interpretation of those 
Scriptures — especially those of the Old Testament — which we 
understand as teaching the essential Divinity of our Saviour. 

But stronger collateral evidence may be gleaned from the 
Cli7'istian Fathers of the first three centuries. Barnabas and 
Hermes, companions of the apostles, invest Christ with the 
attribute of eternity, and ascribe to him the work of creation. 
Justin Martyr, Clement, Tatian, Melito, Irenaeus, Theophilus, 
and Tertullian, all of the second century, assert his Grodhead 
in the strongest terms; and so do Origen, Cyprian, Hilary, 
and Basil, of the third ; and the Church of Smyrna, and the 
Council of Antioch, in their epistles to the churches; and 
Pilate, in his letter to Tiberius, states that Jesus was believed 
by his followers to be Divine. We refer to these testimonies 
to show that we symbolize on this subject with the primitive 
Christian Church, that our views of the person of Christ agree 
with the opinions of those who received the truth fresh and 
pure from the fountain. Thus employed, they constitute a 
powerful corroboration of the Scripture argument. Either we 
are right on this subject, or the first believers and teachers of 
Christianity were wrong. 

Concentrate all this evidence, and what is the result ? A 
momentous alternative. You must believe that the great 
mass of Christians have always been in error, trusting in a 
deceiver, and worshipping a blasphemer ; and that the writers 
of the Bible, professing to be Divinely inspired, were a set of 
sacrilegious wretches, conferring upon a creature the glory of 
the Creator, and robbing the Almighty to deify an impostor; 
and that the author of the sublimest revelations ever made to 
the world, and of the purest moral system ever given to man- 



THE WORD INCxlRNATE. 83 

kind, claiming Divinity alike for his character and for his 
communications, and authenticating the claim by most indubi- 
table miraculous demonstration, was yet the most accomplished 
hypocrite and the most impious sinner that ever trod the 
earth ; or else — and the alternative is inevitable — ^you must 
admit that Christ is Grod. 

11. Christ is man. 

The Gnostics and Apollinarians admitted his Divinity, but 
denied his humanity. The former believed that his human 
body was only an appearance, not a reality ; the latter taught 
that he had a real human body, but not a human soul. The 
Holy Scriptures speak of him as possessing a proper and com- 
plete humanity, comprehending both a human body and a 
human soul, with all their essential attributes. 

In favor of his humanity, the necessity of the case furnishes 
a strong presumption. The Goel must be a kinsman. Our 
Redeemer must be bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. 
He must atone for the ofl"ence in the very nature of the 
ofi'ender. He must be ''made under the law, to redeem 
them that are under the law.'' He must be " tempted in all 
points like as we are,'' that he may ''be touched with a feel- 
ing of our infirmities." Without becoming a man, he could 
not sufi'er as man's substitute — could in nowise fulfil the con- 
ditions of our redemption. Therefore, " because the children 
were partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise 
took part of the same." " If you could once prove," says the 
eloquent Henry Melvill, " that Christ was not perfect man — 
bearing always in mind that sinfulness is not essential to this 
perfectness — there would be nothing worth battling for in the 
truth that Christ is perfect Grod : the only Redeemer who 
can redeem, like the Goel under the law, being necessarily 
my kinsman ; and none being my kinsman who is not of the 
same nature, horn of a woman^ of the substance of that 



84 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

woman, my brother in all but rebellion, myself in all but un- 
boliness.'^ 

Tlie fact is as obvious as the necessity. He calls himself 
"a man/' The sacred writers call him a man, and clothe 
him with all the essential attributes of humanity. He is 
styled "a man of sorrows/' ^^a man approved of God/' and 
"the man Christ Jesus/' and more than seventy times in 
the New Testament he is denominated " the Son of man." 
During his earthly life he sustained the several relations of a 
man, and exercised the functions and affections belonging to 
those relations : as son and brother — as guest, friend, master, 
and public teacher. 

What fact is clearer than that he had a human hody ? He 
speaks often of his own body. Prophets, apostles, and evan- 
gelists speak of it. Like other men, he was born, circum- 
cised, and increased in stature. He possessed the form, fea- 
tures, organs, and senses common to the human species. He 
hungered and thirsted — ate and drank. He walked, talked, 
and labored : grew weary, rested, and slept. He wept, sweat, 
bled, died, and was buried. There is the same evidence that 
he had a real human body, as that Peter or John had a real 
human body ; and the principle of interpretation that would 
set aside this truth would obliterate every other fact or doc- 
trine of the Bible. 

Is it not equally evident that he had a human soul ? The 
soul is essential to the constitution of the man. The body 
without the soul is not a man. If Christ were a superior 
spiritual nature dwelling in a human body without a human 
soul — that superior spiritual nature serving instead of a soul — 
he would be far enough from being a man. The apostle tells 
us that ^' it behooved him to be made in all things like unto 
his brethren/' but if he had not a human soul as well as a 
human body, he was in one very important respect, and that 
the most important of all, perfectly unlike his brethren. His 



THE WORD INCARNATE. 85 

soul is as often mentioned as his body: — "Thou shalt make 
his soul an offering for sin.'' "He shall see of the travail of 
his soul." " He hath poured out his soul unto death." " Thou 
wilt not leave my soul in hell." "Now is my soul troubled." 
"My soul is exceeding sorrowful." The Scriptures ascribe to 
him all the essential faculties, affections, and habitudes of a 
human soul, and he exhibited them all. He had human 
judgment, memory, and imagination. He had human sym- 
pathies, attachments, and aversions. He "waxed strong in 
spirit," and "increased in wisdom." He "rejoiced in spirit," 
and was "sorrowful and sore amazed." These statements 
cannot apply, either to his human body, or to the Divine Na- 
ture dwelling in it. They relate to his human soul. All this 
is incompatible with the Arian hypothesis. How can acquisi- 
tion and improvement be predicated of an infinite spirit? 
How can an omniscient mind require or receive instruction, 
or increase in wisdom and knowledge ? Will it be said that 
this mental progress was only in appearance ? Then it was a 
deception unworthy of God or man. "Will it be said that the 
Divine Logos, in its incarnation, lost its plenitude of intelli- 
gence, and became feeble and limited as the mind of a child ? 
Then the change was not merely an assumption of humanity, 
but a real transmutation and degradation of the superior 
nature into the inferior. How could Christ be " the Seed of 
Abraham," and "the Son of David," if he had not, like 
them, a human soul, as well as a human body ? How could 
he be called "a man," and "the Son of man," if he had only 
the body of a man, without the soul of a man ? The living- 
body is in itself no more a man than the shrouded corpse. It 
is written that Christ was "made under the law;" but how 
could this be, if he had not a human soul ? Could a mere 
human body qualify him for subjection to a law which is ad- 
dressed to the mind? or could a Divine mind be subject to a 
law intended for the government of the human mind ? If any 



86 HEADLANDS OETAITH. 

imagine the term ^' flesh ^^ in John i. 14, and elsewhere when 
similarly applied, refers to the body exclusive of the soul, it 
is easy to show that it signifies simply human nature, em- 
bracing both the corporeal and the spiritual. Take the fol- 
lowing: — ^^All flesh had corrupted his way'' — ^'Unto thee 
shall all flesh come" — "I will pour out my Spirit upon all 
flesh"— '^All flesh shall see the salvation of God"— ^' Let all 
flesh bless his holy name for ever." In these places " all 
flesh" means all men. Man is denominated ^' flesh" from 
his visible part, or external condition. So, when it is said, 
" The Logos was made flesh," the sense evidently is that he 
assumed human nature, including the mental as well as the 
corporeal. In short, if there is lio sufficient proof that Christ 
had a human soul, there is no sufficient proof that he had a 
human body. If there is no sufficient proof that he had a 
human soul, there is no sufficient proof that any man has a 
human soul. If there is no sufficient proof that he had a 
human soul, there is no sufficient proof of any other fact of 
the evangelical history. And thus we complete the argument 
for the manhood of our Mediator : showing him to be man 
in no mystical or figurative sense, but strictly and literally, in 
every respect, and in every degree. 

But it must not be supposed that his was a fallen and sin- 
ful humanity. This is not essential to our nature : it is the 
great accident of our nature. Adam in Paradise was human, 
but not sinful. Saints in heaven are human, but not sinful. 
So Jesus was human, but not sinful. The sinfulness of our 
Kedeemer would have frustrated the plan of our redemption. 
A fallen nature never could have atoned for a fallen race. 
But Christ's humanity was ^' holy, harmless, undefiled, and 
separate from sinners." It never existed till it existed in 
connection with the Divinity; therefore, though a human na- 
ture, it was not a human person; and not being a human per- 
son, it was not represented by Adam, and could not be defiled 



THE WORD INCARNATE. 87 

by his fall. It possessed all our innocent infirmities, but 
none of our sinful propensities — stared the consequences 
without participating in the cause. Derived from a human 
parent, it could suffer ; but produced by the Holy Spirit, it 
could not sin. It was an afflicted, but an unfallen nature. 

In the fact of Christ's humanity we find unsj)ealcahle conso' 
lation. How it soothes the believer's sorrows, and strengthens 
his penitential trust, and elicits all the ardor of his love, to 
know that his Hedeemer, notwithstanding his glorious and in- 
effable perfections, as the Creator and Sovereign of the uni- 
verse — perfections which shone forth occasionally to dazzle 
and astound the world while he tabernacled and dwelt among 
us — ^yet, to use the language of another,* ^^ that he was like 
myself in all points, my sinfulness only excepted : that his 
flesh, like mine, could be lacerated by stripes, wasted by hun- 
ger, and torn by nails : that his soul, like mine, could be as- 
saulted by Satan, harassed by temptation, and disquieted un- 
der the hidings of the Father's countenance : that he could 
suffer every thing which I can suffer, except the remorse of a 
guilty conscience : that he could weep every tear which I can 
weep, except the tear of repentance : that he could fear with 
every fear, hope with every hope, and joy with every joy, 
which I may entertain as a man, and not be ashamed of as a 
Christian !" 

III. Christ is God-Man. 

That the Divine and the human are mysteriously united in 
his person, is the doctrine generally received by the Church, 
from the apostles to the present time. In a few instances, it 
has been denied, and, in many, misconceived and perverted. 
The Nestorians believed that G-od dwelt in Christ as in a 
temple ; that the union of the Son of God and the Son of man 

* H. MelviU. 



05 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

was a union only of will and affection. The Eutycliians held 
that the human nature of Christ was absorbed in the Divine, 
so that he had only the appearance of humanity, and not the 
reality. The Monophysites contended for two persons, as well 
as two natures, in Christ, but believed them to be, in some mys- 
terious manner, so blended and confounded as to constitute 
but one. The Monotholites absurdly ascribed to Christ two 
natures, with only one will, as if there could be an intelligent 
nature without a will, or as if two wills could not be perfectly 
harmonious. The Sabellians affirmed that there is but one 
person in the Godhead, who originally as the Father gave the 
Law, subsequently as the Son dwelt among men, and finally 
as the Spirit diffused himself over the Church. The Sweden- 
borgians assert that God came into the world to glorify hu- 
manity by making it Divine ; and that the human nature of 
our blessed Lord, by virtue of its connection with the Divinity, 
is itself God. A more scriptural view of the matter is that 
put forth by the Council of Chalcedou, in the fifth century : — 
'' That in Christ there is but one person; in the unity of per- 
son, two natures — the human and Divine ; and that of these 
two natures there is no change, or mixture, or confusion, but 
each retains its own distinguishing properties.'^ The doctrine 
is very clearly and fully stated in the Athanasian Creed : — 
" Christ is perfect God, and perfect man, of a reasonable soul 
and human flesh subsisting ; who, although he be God and 
man, yet he is not two, but one Christ; one, not by the con- 
version of Godhead into flesh, but by taking the manhood 
into God ; one altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by 
unity of person ; for as the reasonable soul and flesh are one 
man, so God and man are one Christ.'^ This, then, is the 
point to be established — That the two natures in our Lord 
constitute but one person — That the Godhead and the man- 
hood united constitute but one Christ. 

Here, also, we may argue from the necessity of the case. 



THE WORD INCARNATE. 89 

Without such a union of natures, Christ could not be a suit- 
able and sufficient Mediator between God and man. If he 
were not man, he could not be man's substitute — could not 
represent our race, or suffer in our stead. If he were not God, 
his obedience unto death could possess no merit to atone for 
us, and could benefit us no more than the sufferings of any 
other creature. But if he were God and man without the 
union of the two natures in one person, though the humanity 
might suffer and the Divinity might merit, yet the suffering 
would belong to one person and the merit to another, and 
both could never belong to either, and neither could ever be- 
long to both. Our substitute must be God and man in the 
same person, in order that to the same person may belong both 
the suffering and the merit. Our Mediator must be equally 
allied to both parties^ and both parties must be alike repre- 
sented in his person. 

This reasoning is susceptible of abundant confirmation 
from the Holy Scriptures, both by rational inference and 
by explicit declaration. Christ is frequently mentioned as 
two natures, but he is always represented as one person. 
The works peculiar to God are often ascribed to him under 
his human appellations, while the actions and sufferings 
proper only to man are as often predicated of him under his 
Divine names and titles. The absolute manner in which 
he is spoken of, forbids the idea that there is any confusion 
of the two natures in his person — that the Godhead lost 
any of its essential character from its union with the 
manhood, or the manhood from its union with the Godhead. 
If his Divine nature were at all impaired, he would not be 
God; if his human nature were essentially changed, he 
would not be man ; if the two natures were mixed and con- 
founded in his person, he would be a compound being, and 
neither God nor man. '^ Nothing is deficient in his human- 
ity,'' says Richard Watson, ^^ nothing in his Divinity, and 



90 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

yet lie is one Christ/' " It is a personal union," says Robert 
Hall, " but not a union of persons/' It is a union of two 
natures in one person. " Nor let it be forgotten/' adds this 
eloquent divine, " that these natures are not blended together; 
but retain, notwithstanding their union, their essential pro- 
perties. The humanity is not deified ; the Divinity is not 
humanized. The Deity is not changed into flesh, nor the 
flesh transformed into God. The Divine nature is still, ac- 
cording to its essential attributes, omnipresent, omniscient, 
and omnipotent ; the human nature is still, according to its 
native qualities, attached to one particular place at a time, 
limited in its knowledge, and bounded in its power." 

" These two circumstances," says Mr. Watson — " the com- 
pleteness of each nature, and the union of both in one 
person — is the only hey to the language of the New Testa- 
ment; and so entirely explains and harmonizes the whole, as 
to afford the strongest proof, next to its explicit verbal state- 
ment, of the doctrine that our Lord is at once truly God and 
truly man." On any other hypothesis, there is no satisfactory 
explanation possible of the Evangelical Record. There are 
but three ways of interpreting those scriptures which speak 
of the person of Christ : the language must be referred to 
his humanity alone, or to his Divinity alone, or to both 
natures conjoined. Thus all is rendered perfectly intelligible, 
consistent, and harmonious. 

If any inquire how Christ, being God, could be born of a 
woman — grow in wisdom and stature — become subject to 
law — be tempted, sorrowful, forsaken of his Father — be 
crucified, buried, raised from the dead, and received up to 
the right hand of the Supreme Majesty, — we answer, he is 
man as well as God, and all this is spoken of his humanity. 
If any inquire how Christ, being man, could exist before the 
foundation of the world — could bear the appropriate and 
peculiar names of Deity — could justly claim and properly 



THE WORD INCARNATE. 91 

receive the adoration of heaven and earth — could be present 
with his people in every place and throughout all time — could 
perceive the thoughts and reasonings of his enemies, and 
foresee every circumstance of his own ineffable sufferings — 
could authoritatively, by word or will, still the storm, heal 
the sick, raise the dead, forgive sins, and cast out devils, — we 
answer, he is God as well as man, and all this is spoken of 
his Divinity. If any inquire how the two extremes of weak- 
ness and power, suffering and triumph, humiliation and ma- 
jesty, could coexist in the same being — how the Messiah could 
be both David's Lord and David's Son, his Root and his 
Offspring — ^how Christ Jesus could be before Abraham, and 
yet a descendant of Abraham — how Grod, who is a Spirit, 
could purchase the Church with his own blood — how the 
Prince of life could be killed, and the Lord of glory could 
be crucified — how he who was in the form of God, and 
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, could be also in 
the form of a servant, and become obedient unto death — how 
he who is the image of the invisible God, who was before all 
things, by whom all things were created, and by whom all 
things consist, could suffer for us, and shed his blood for us, 
and lay down his life for us, and by the sacrifice of himself 
procure our salvation, — we answer, he is two natures in one 
person — God and man constituting but one Christ. Thus 
the consistency of the sacred writers is vindicated, the three 
classes of scriptures are mutually adjusted, and apparently 
conflicting passages are rendered perfectly harmonious. 

With such evidence before us, the mysteriousness of the 
connection constitutes no barrier to belief. What is unknown 
cannot alter what is known. Our ignorance of one thing 
cannot weaken God's testimony to another. The proof of 
the Incarnation is just as complete, and just as satisfactory, 
as if there were no mystery in the matter. A thing may be 
credible, though it is incomprehensible. We believe a thou- 



92 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

sand things which we cannot explain. All admit the con- 
nection of mind and matter : who understands the mode ? 
Is there any more mysteriousness in the union of two distinct 
natures in one person, than in the union of two distinct ele- 
ments in one nature ? If a spirit and a body can be so joined 
together as to make but one man, why may not the Divinity 
and the humanity be so joined together as to make but one 
Mediator? Is the latter more inexplicable than the former, 
or more an impossibility with God ? Why should our faith 
in what Heaven has communicated, be affected by our igno- 
rance of what he has withheld ? ^^ Secret things belong to 
Grod -y to us, only ^^ things which are revealed.^' He has 
not explained the phenomenon of the incarnation, and we 
should not aspire to a wisdom above what is written. The 
question for us is — ^' What is Christ V^ not — ^' How did he 
become such V^ The latter lies without the province of hu- 
man speculation. It is ^^ too high '' for us : we " cannot 
attain unto it.'' There is no analogy for its illustration. We 
receive the fact, but we leave its philosophy with God. 

Robert Hall calls the incarnation of the Logos " the mystic 
ladder which conducts mortals to the abode of the Eternal." 
Is it not also the ladder by which the Eternal descends to 
mortals ? This ^^Hypostatic JJnion'^ has bridged the great 
gulf between the world of spirit and the world of sense. It 
has brought the Infinite within our grasp, and rendered the 
Invisible an object of sight. Here we behold God looking 
upon us with human eyes, and hear him speaking to us with 
a human voice. Here the Deity reveals himself by sensible 
exhibition, and we feel that he has indeed pitched his taber- 
nacle with men, and dwells among them. 

Scholastic theology has made the Eternal a cold and deso- 
late abstraction; a being who loves without sympathy, and 
hates without emotion ; and viewing him through this medium, 
we deem his moral character as dissimilar to any human exhi- 



THE WORD INCARNATE. 93 

bition of the highest virtue, as we conceive his glorious abode 
to be distant from our terrestrial habitation. But the assump- 
tion of humanity by the Logos has brought Deity within our 
ken, revealed his character in distinct personality, and made 
his virtues palpable. We see the Divine benevolence embod- 
ied, and going about doing good. We behold Infinite Com- 
passion weeping at the grave of Lazarus, and bewailing the 
anticipated doom of Jerusalem. We can make a study of 
Godhead. We can read his character, as we can read the 
character of our fellow-men. We can discern his goodness, 
as we discern his glory, " in the face of Jesus Christ.'^ 

And while we thus learn what God is, we learn also what 
man should be. While we discover what he has done to 
save us, we discover also what we must do to avail ourselves 
of that salvation. The precept is illustrated by the example; 
the description by the model. All moral goodness is embod- 
ied in our Redeemer. He is the perfect and infallible stand- 
ard of every virtue. The saints are designated as his ^' fol- 
lowers,^^ and directed '^ to walk as he also walked.'^ He hath 
brought God down to us, that he may lead us up to God. 
He hath taken upon himself the human nature, that we 
may become partakers of the Divine. He is made in the 
likeness of sinful flesh, that we may awake satisfied with the 
likeness of our Maker. In our nature he suffered to expiate 
our sins, in our nature he stands before the Father as our 
advocate, and in our nature he will finally return to take us 
to himself. Let us trust in his merit, hope in his mercy, 
and wait for his salvation. Thus shall we verify the pro- 
phetic promise : — "A man shall be as a hiding-place from the 
wind, and a covert from the tempest j as springs of water in 
a dry place; as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." 

Our Brother is ^Hhe blessed and only Potentate, who 
alone hath immortality;'^ and his arms, that built the starry 
vault, are extended to embrace us ; and his heart, throbbing 



94 HEADLANDS OP FAIT II. 

with human sympathies^ and glowing with the infinite love 
of Godhead, is open to receive us all. He died for us ; and 
lo I he is " alive for evermore '/' and with the same glorified 
humanity in which he went up from Olivet, he shall return 
to claim his ransomed kindred ; and holy men, by virtue of 
his assumption of their nature, sustaining a nearer relation to 
him than any other order of creatures in the universe, shall 
be copartners of his throne, joint-heirs of his infinite glory 
and blessedness. 

" This sum of good to man, 
Shout earth"! shout heaven !" 



THE MYSTERIOUS AGONY. 95 



VI.— THE MYSTERIOUS AGONY. 

What is there in human literature, ancient or modern, 
historic or romantic — nay, what is there even in the word of 
God — that strikes the mind with such tender astonishment, 
as the familiar record of the Redeemer's agony the night 
before his crucifixion ? To see stalwart manhood struggling 
with disease and distracted with pain — to see fragile beauty 
languishing in consumption, and slowly fading from the 
world — to see innocent childhood writhing in convulsions, or 
stretching out its little hands imploringly, amid the chill 
waters of death — either of these were a sight sufficiently 
touching to a tender and sympathetic nature. But to see the 
immaculate Son of God — the Almighty Maker and Sustainer 
of the universe, in his tabernacle of human flesh, wrestling 
with an unknown anguish, deprecating the crisis of his woe, 
bathed with a bloody perspiration, and receiving angelic 
succor — ^this is a spectacle which equally excites our pity and 
confounds our reason. To such a view we are now invited ; 
but let us draw near with reverence, for the ground we tread is 
holy. We will first take a cursory survey of the circumstances 
connected with this amazing phenomenon, and then inquire 
more particularly into the nature of the sufferings recorded. 

I. The narratives of Matthew and Mark are very similar. 
They both relate the same things, in nearly the same lan- 
guage. They are more copious than Luke, and mention 
several circumstances which he has omitted. They tell us 



96 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

that the agony was in a garden called Gethsemane : Luke 
does not name the place, but simply alludes to its locality. 
They tell us that Jesus left eight of his disciples near the 
entrance, and took three of them farther into the interior : 
Luke says nothing of this separation. They tell us that he 
went away and prayed three times, and three times returned 
and reproved the sleepers : Luke makes no reference to the 
repetition. They tell us that in prayer he ^' fell upon the 
earth,'' ^' fell upon his face :" Luke states only that he 
" kneeled down and prayed." In all this there is no con- 
tradiction : it is merely the omission by the one of what is 
related by the others. But Luke mentions two very import- 
ant circumstances, to which Matthew and Mark do not refer at 
all — the ministering seraph, and the bloody sweat. 

Let us leave the garden. Let us enter the city. It is evening. 
There is a large upper room, where lights are burning. Let us 
ascend. Who are these twelve reclining at supper ? Who is 
that remarkable personage at the head of the table, with that 
fair young friend, of almost feminine loveliness, leaning upon 
his bosom ? How majestic that brow ! How radiant that eye 
with the outbeaming soul ! How eloquent every feature, of 
benignity and love ! Yet what a subdued and indefinable 
sadness mantles that wondrous countenance ! What words of 
solemn grandeur and holy tenderness drop from those beauti- 
ful lips ! How eagerly all ears are listening to catch their 
gracious utterance, and with what an intense gaze all eyes are 
fixed upon the speaker ! It is the " Man of Sorrows," with 
his sorrowful disciples. He knows that his hour is come. It 
is the last night. To-morrow morning, he must take his cross, 
and go to Calvary. ^' Having loved his own which were in the 
world," now that he is about to leave them, '' he loves them 
to the end." He has collected them together for a final in- 
terview. It is the time of the passover. He would eat with 
them the paschal lamb, before he goes ^^ as a lamb to the 



THE MYSTERIOUS AGONY. 97 

slaughter." During the feast lie discourses to them in a 
strain of marvellous and melancholy sweetness. " Never man 
spake like this man :" never spake this man before as he 
speaks to-night. Never had his words so vast a weight, nor 
his tone so rich a melody. Turn to the Gospel of Saint John. 
Read the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chap- 
ters. Was there ever such a colloquy of friends ? Was there 
ever such a valedictory of pastor to his flock ? Was ever 
such consolation breathed over sorrowing hearts ? Was ever 
sermon fraught with so divine a pathos ? Proceed to the 
seventeenth chapter. Was there ever such a prayer — so 
comprehensive, so affectionate, so beautiful, and so sublime ? 

Judas Iscariot has left the company. Whither he has gone, 
and for what purpose, none but the Master knows. His om- 
niscient eye follows the traitor, and sees the damning contract. 
He rises from supper. The eleven join him in '^ one of the 
songs of Zion.'^ It is the great Hallel sung at every paschal 
feast. With what a sweet, sad echo that last hymn floats off 
upon the night-wind ! Never were the words of David sung 
with a truer meaning and deeper devotion, since he sung 
them to his own lyre. It is ended. They are on their way 
out of the city. Jerusalem is thronged with strangers, come 
up from every quarter, and from many distant lands, to keep 
the Passover. There is no room for Jesus and his disciples. 
But he has other reasons for retiring beyond the wall. It is 
the last night, and he would spend it alone with his loving 
Father and his few beloved friends. The hour of his final 
suffering is near, and he would prepare by meditation and 
prayer for the dread endurance. Judas has received the 
silver, and with his band of Roman ruffians will soon be on 
his way to the garden ; and Jesus would go to meet them in 
a quiet and secluded place, that his apprehension may occa- 
sion no tumult, nor shedding of blood, nor disturbance of the 
slumbering city. They pass through the eastern gate. Be- 
5 



98 HEADLANDS OT FAITH. 

fore them, in its silent beauty, rises the green slope of Olivet, 
gilded by the silvery moon. At their feet, in deep shade, 
through a narrow valley, wandera the Kedron southward, 
murmuring among the echoing tombs of the Jewish fathers — 
hero, and prophet, and monarch, and martyr — who have slept 
for centuries there. 

Lo ! they descend the declivity — the Shepherd with his 
" little flock/' He is speaking to them. He is saying some- 
thing evidently of very surprising import. Let us draw near 
and listen. "All ye shall be offended because of me this 
night; for it is written — I will smite the Shepherd, and the 
sheep shall be scattered.'' Can they believe the startling 
announcement ? One of their number is gone — they suspect 
not whither, nor for what ; but are not all the rest true to 
their Lord ? Is there any symptom of infidelity, or even of 
doubt ? They have long been with him : will they forsake him 
now ? What danger can so affright them ? What sorrow can 
so discourage them ? What misfortune can break up so sud- 
denly that tender and holy friendship ? What indignity can 
make them blush so soon to own a Master they love so well ? 
Can they forget the Lake of Tiberias, where he came walking 
the waves to their rescue? Can they forget the Gralilean 
hill, where he fed the multitude with bread of his own imme- 
diate creation? Can they forget the mountain, where his 
countenance shone aS the sun, and his raiment became white 
as the light, while he talked with Moses and Elias? Can 
they forget the grave at Bethany, the bier at the gate of Nain, 
or the solemn and consoling converse they have just had with 
him at the table ? Surely, if they would ever cleave to Jesus, 
it will be to-night. Surely, all that has so recently occcirred 
must strengthen their attachment and confirm their confi- 
dence. So they feel, and so they speak. Loud above all the 
rest swells the brave protest of Peter: — "Though all men 
should forsake thee, yet will not T!" Alas! he knows not 



THE MYSTERIOUS AGONY. 99 

his own weakness, nor tlie power of temptation by which he 
is soon to be tried. Christ repeats the warning in a still more 
impressive manner; and assures him, with solemn emphasis, 
that this very night he will deny him thrice. The self-confi- 
dent disciple, grieved that his fidelity should be suspected, 
exclaims more vehemently than before — " Though I should 
die with thee, yet will I not deny thee V So answer all the 
rest, for they are alike unconscious of guile, and ignorant of 
the fiery trial that awaits them. But an hour or two shall 
test their firmness and their courage. Jesus is approaching 
the wine-press, and the Scripture must needs be fulfilled : — 
"I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people there 
was none with me." 

They are come to the Kedron. David crossed it in sorrow 
a thousand years before, flying from Absalom and the insur- 
gents. Now the Son of David crosses it, perhaps by the very 
same path, to await the traitor and his band. They enter a 
garden just at the foot of the mountain. In a garden the 
first Adam was assailed by the tempter : in a garden the 
Second Adam must battle with his host. In a garden the 
first human sin was committed : in a garden all human sin 
must be expiated. In a garden our ruin was accomplished; 
in a garden our redemption must be begun. It is called 
Gethsemane — the garden of the wine-press ; and there it is 
that the immaculate humanity of Jesus shall be bruised in the 
wine-press of Almighty God. 

Thus far the eleven have attended their Lord. He would 
take them into the scene of danger, to show them their weak- 
ness. He would give them a distant view of his sufierings, 
the better to prepare them for their own. He would let them 
see with what firmness he can endure, and thus fortify them 
against fear in the sore conflicts they have soon to experience. 
But they cannot witness all. They have scarcely entered the 
enclosure, when he saith to them — •" Sit ve here, while I 2:0 



100 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

and pray yonder/' Peter and James and John are permitted 
to accompany him a little farther. None but these three were 
present at the resuscitation of Jairus's daughter; no eyes but 
theirs gazed upon the glories of the transfiguration ', and they 
alone can be admitted to a nearer view of that mysterious 
agony. They have seen something of the power of his God- 
head : they must see something of the weakness of his man- 
hood. They have witnessed his glory : they must witness his 
humiliation. The former spectacle was the preparative for 
the latter. Perhaps they have more to suffer than the rest, 
and need peculiar influences to fortify them. Perhaps they 
are more inclined to self-reliance, and need special conviction 
of their infirmity. 

As soon as they have left the eight behind, Jesus begins 
" to be sore amazed, and very heavy.'' It is the commence- 
ment of those " unknown sorrows and suiferings, by him felt, 
but to us incomprehensible." " A horror of great darkness" 
falls upon him — a depression of feeling which no language 
may define — a mental anguish too keen for human conception. 
He must needs withdraw himself from the three friends whom 
he has brought so far. Grief naturally courts seclusion; and 
never was there grief like his. He would bury his groans in 
the bosom of the night, and conceal his tears with her veil. 
Many a time have the floods compassed him about ; but now 
the waters are come in unto his soul. Many a gloomy cloud 
has overcast him ; but now he is enveloped in the very black- 
ness of darkness. Many an empoisoned arrow has wounded 
him; but now the powers of hell level against him their 
heaviest artillery. He saith to the favorite three — " My soul 
is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." What language 
for the Son of God! "sorrowful" — "exceeding sorrowful" 
— " sorrowful, even unto death !" " The hour and the power 
of darkness" are upon him. How can the three endure to 
witness what he is destined to suffer? "Tarry ye here," 



THE MYSTERIOUS AGONY. 101 

saith lie, '^ and watch ^^ — '^ Pray that ye enter not into tempta- 
tion/' They have their several errands at the Throne of 
Grace ; but his is peculiar now, and they may not accompany 
him thither. They cannot sympathize with the Almighty 
Sufferer, and a nearer sight of his sufferings might be too 
much for their feeble faith. Withdrawing from them " about 
a stone's cast/' he kneels amid the shrubbery, in the shade of 
a spreading olive tree. Hark ! " Father, if it be possible, 
let this cup pass from me V 

Jesus! what means that deprecation? Wouldst thou 
abandon the work thou hast begun ? Didst thou come into 
the world to save sinners; and wouldst thou now shrink from 
the sacrifice by which it is to be accomplished ? Hast thou 
done and suffered so much already, and now, just on the verge 
of victory, wouldst thou retire from the contest, and allow hell 
to triumph over thy thwarted mercy and our ruined human- 
ity ? 0, no ! It is only the man's natural shrinking from 
pain — the shrinking of a sinless man from such pain as man 
never yet has borne. The desire and the resolve of the indwell- 
ing God, to meet and to exhaust for us the curse we have 
incurred, is the same now as when he left the throne and 
seraphs sang over the manger; but his humanity trembles 
with the dread foreboding, and staggers beneath its unknown 
weight of woe. There seems to be a conflict between the 
infinite love of the Godhead, and the natural aversion of the 
manhood to suffering ; and the greater that conflict, the more 
wonderful the subsequent submission, obedience, fortitude, 
and final triumph of his love. 

Now he returns to the three disciples, finds them sleeping 
for sorrow, rouses them with a kind remonstrance, retires 
again, and repeats the prayer. Once more he comes to the 
disciples ; once more he gently chides their unwatchfulness ; 
then, once more, prostrate on the dew-damp earth, the Well- 
Beloved entreats the loving Father. And this time he is 



102 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

'^in an agony" — what an agony is that ! And ^'he prays 
more earnestly'^ — who shall tell with what soul-consuming 
fervorS; what strong ^' crying and tears I" " And his sweat 
is as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground/' 
Instances there have been of perspiration tinged with blood, 
from great terror and mental anguish, in the hour of death. 
But here is a man in perfect health, with a mind of serenest 
majesty, and as innocent as the angels in heaven, who has 
faced death in a hundred forms, and always shown himself 
superior to fear. Yet such is the depth and intenseness of 
his distress, as to wring the blood from out his veins, till it 
rolls in "great drops^' from his temples, and impurples the 
green earth whereon he lies. 

It is midnight. Silence reigns in the city. The faint mur- 
mur of the Kedron is the only sound that mingles with 
the groans and sighs of G-ethsemane. The disciples are all 
sleeping ; but there is no sleep to-night for the Son of God. 
Thrice has the prayer been offered ; but it is yet unanswered. 
Myriads of angels are in attendance ; and demons from out 
the bottomless pit, more numerous than the leaves that over- 
shadow him. surround the writhing Sufferer, all waiting to 
witness the issue. Great God ! what shall that issue be ? 
Infinite interests are depending. Shall the cup pass ? Shall 
the pledge and the prophecy fail ? Shall the enterprise prove 
an abortion, alike dishonorable to God and ruinous to man ? 
Shall the angels that attended the Redeemer down from 
heaven, and have hitherto ministered to the Son of Man, 
return thither in silence and in shame? Shall the joyful 
announcement of so many holy seers be falsified, and the sub- 
lime significance of so many types and shadows be contra- 
dicted, and the faith in which so many saints have fallen 
asleep turn out a delusion ? ! must hell triumph over 
Incarnate Love, and earth bewail her blasted hopes, and 
heaven hang up its harps unstrung for ever? 



THE MYSTERIOUS AGONY. 103 

Lo, the rush of pinions, a gleam through the emerald foli- 
age, and a mighty angel stands beside the Sufferer. What 
is his errand ? Comes he to remove the cup ? Then descend, 
ye spirits of just men made perfect, and sit in the darkness 
of the pit for ever ; for the prey shall not be taken from the 
mighty, and the lawful captive shall never be delivered ! 
Then shout, ye demons ; and mourn, ye morning stars ; and 
fold your wings upon- your faces, ye hitherto joyous seraphim, 
and weep and wail till heaven resounds with one far-spreading 
lamentation ^ and let Mercy put on sackcloth, and sprinkle 
her beamy locks with ashes, and retire in tears from a world 
she could not save, and take her melancholy way, through a 
universe hung with mourning, into returnless exile ! 

O, no ! He comes not to remove the cup, but to strengthen 
the victim, that he may drain it to the dregs. He comes not 
to release him from the burden, but to sustain him under its 
pressure. He must suffer, or man is lost. He might call 
twelve legions of angels to his rescue ; but here is only one 
to succor him with his sympathy. The ministration of phy- 
sical help is not the Sufferer's need. His anguish is the 
anguish of the soul, and t© the soul the angel addresses his 
aid. How sweetly he discourses of the triumph that awaits 
him, of the joy that is set before him ! — the triumph of his 
certain resurrection and ascension; the joy of his Father's 
approval and his people's love; the outburst of new songs in 
heaven ; the effusion of the Spirit upon all flesh -, his gospel 
published in all lands ; his dominion established for all time ; 
ransomed millions, far down the vista of future ages, pressing 
into the kingdom ; the saints of successive generations, century 
after century, redeemed by the sore travail of his soul, coming 
home to the celestial Zion; and then, the last enemy conquered, 
and surrendering his last captive to the Conqueror; and 
myriads, born to immortality from out the tomb, in one vast 
pvocession, with the Captain of their salvation in their van — 



104 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

with harps, and trumps, and palms, and crowns — marching to 
the metropolis of his empire, ^' the City of the Great King,'' 
and waliing the echoes of unnumbered worlds as they pass 
with their jubilant " Hosannas in the highest !" 

It is enough ! The fainting spirit is refreshed. " Father, 
thy will be done I" The tremor is over. The Sufferer rises, 
and wipes from his brow the crimson dew. His features 
resume their wonted serenity. It was a mighty struggle ; but 
it is ended, and heaven retunes its myriad harps to sing 

" The triumpli of sorrow, the triumph of love !" 

This amazing scene furnishes indubitable proof of our 
Saviour's proper humanity. In the bloody sweat we see the 
weakness of a human body. In the mental anguish which 
caused it we see the wri things of a human soul. There is no 
other explanation of the phenomenon. It has been supposed 
by some that the person of Christ consisted of a human body 
without a human soul — that his human body was quickened 
by the superior spiritual nature, the Divine Logos, that dwelt 
in it as in a temple. But if our Lord had not a conscious 
and rational soul, besides that celestial nature, how shall we 
account for his mental depression and anguish ? How could 
Essential Blessedness be ^^ exceeding sorrowful?" How could 
Infinite Intelligence be ^^sore amazed?" How could the 
Creator be strengthened by a creature? How could the 
Sustainer of all receive succor from one constantly dependent 
upon his sustaining power ? These questions can be answered 
only by admitting that Christ was truly man, with man's 
physical infirmities, and mental faculties, and moral feelings. 

II. Let us now reverently inquire into the peculiar na- 
ture OP OUR saviour's agony. What was the cause, and 
what was the character of that intense mental conflict, which 
he anticipated so fearfully, and deprecated so earnestly— 



THE MYSTERIOUS AGONY. 105 

which forced the purple life from out its channels, and 
required the succor of angelic sympathy ? 

Was it the remorse of guilt ? This is what none but the 
guilty can experience; but Christ^' did no iniquity." There 
was not a stain upon his human soul, nor a moral shadow 
upon his life. If he had been a sinner, he could not be the 
Saviour of other sinners. To say that he suffered remorse for 
the sins of men in the character of a substitute, is too absurd 
to require refutation. 

Was it tlie fear of Ms enemies? All power was his in 
heaven and in earth. Why should he fear the worms he has 
formed, whose breath he inspires, whose blood he propels, 
whose very souls he sustains in being ? Let them surround 
him by thousands ; he can pass through their midst again, 
and go his way; or call down fire from heaven upon them; 
or make the earth open her mouth and devour them; or 
paralyze the tongue that speaks against him, or the hand 
stretched forth to seize him. He has seen times apparently 
of more immediate personal danger than this ; but who ever 
knew him to quail before the malice of persecution, or the 
menace of power ? 

Was it the terror of a cruel death ? To die, he came into 
the world. To be capable of dying, he assumed our mortal 
nature. From the first, he knew the necessity of his death, 
and distinctly foresaw its mode, and all its circumstances of 
torture and of shame. Yet he consented to it : he rejoiced 
in the prospect. From the throne of the universe he beheld 
a cross erected on Calvary; and to embrace that cross he abdi- 
cated that throne. His views and feelings are still unchanged, 
and Golgotha acquires no terror from its contiguity. The 
fear of death? then has the Master less fortitude than his 
martyrs. The fear of death ? then is '■^ the Lion of the tribe of 
Judah'^ less a hero than many a warrior, than many a savage. 
The fear of death ? that were dishonorable even to his man- 



106 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

hood, to say nothing of the Godhead by which it is sustained. 
Why should he fear death, who is himself the resurrection 
and the life ? Why should he fear death, who knows that it 
is the way to eternal blessedness and glory, and that in less 
than three days he shall live to die no more ? Why should he 
fear death, who by dying is to destroy him that hath the 
power of death, and make earth's cemeteries the seed-fields 
of immortality? 

Was it the displeasure of the Eternal Father ? The thought 
is blasphemy. The Eternal Father calls the Incarnate Son 
his *' Well-Beloved;" and testifies at his baptism and his 
transfiguration that in him ^' he is ever well pleased." God 
can be angry with none but sinners ; but his Son has never 
sinned. To say that God was angry with his Son as the sub- 
stitute for human sinners, is to contradict all that the Scrip- 
tures say of his infinite love in sending " his Son to be the 
Saviour of the world." What ! does not the Father concur 
with the Son in his great enterprise of recovering mercy? 
Has he not commissioned him with this errand of redemp- 
tion, and promised to reward his obedience unto death with 
the glories of a universal and everlasting sovereignty? And 
will he now be angry with the Innocent, whom he himself 
has appointed the legal substitute for the guilty, with so 
mighty an indemnity for the suffering he must endure in that 
relation ? Is the great God so capricious and changeful — so 
unreasonable and unjust? 0, no! He was never better 
pleased with his Son than when he said — "Lo, I come to 
do thy will, God !" God was never better pleased with his 
Son than when he exclaimed — '^Awake, sword, against my 
shepherd, against the man that is my fellow !" God was 
never better pleased with his Son than when he saw him con- 
vulsed with agony and crimsoned with blood in Olivet, and 
sent an angel to his succor. 

Was it the penalty of God's violated law f So it is often 



THE MYSTERIOUS AGONY. 107 

said iu the pulpit; but never in the Holy Scriptures. I have 
seen it stated thafe Christ suffered, both in kind and in 
amount, the exact penalty of the law — ^just what the sinner 
deserved te suffer, and all that he deserved to suffer — the 
entire punishment, in intensity and extent, which the whole 
multitude of his redeemed must have experienced if they had 
been damned for evermore ! Even so great and good a man 
as the late Dr. Chalmers teaches this frightful theory. One 
theological writer maintains that the sufferings of Christ in 
Gethsemane were the actual pains of hell, and more in 
amount than all the myriads of fallen angels and accursed 
human spirits can possibly suffer to all eternity ! The theory 
is this : — That Christ, as the sinner's Surety, stands before 
the Eternal Judge, laden with the sins of all his people : that 
their guilt is all imputed to him, and he is treated as if he 
had committed them all himself: that he endures, in all its 
fearfulness, their proper punishment — an amount of ven- 
geance equal to the eternal damnation of the whole human 
race : that Divine Justice gathers all the curses of the vio- 
lated law into one huge avenging bolt, which, falling else- 
where,, would annihilate angels and men, and burn up the 
universe, and hurls it flaming down upon the soul of our 
Surety ! The stateiiient of such a theory is its refutation. It 
makes the Son of God a sinner, and God angry with his Son. 
We know not, indeed, what exquisite refinement of anguish 
the God-man endured in the garden : we know not how many 
bitter ingredients were wrung into that single cup which he 
prayed might pass from him; but there was certainly no 
necessity that his sufferings should be infinite, since it was 
the majesty of th& Sufferer — not the amount of suffering — 
that rendered the di'ead endurance sufficiently meritorious for 
our redemption. Nor was it possible that his sufferings 
should be the exact penalty o^ the law. The penalty of the 
law is eternal death; and to endure eternal death, Christ 



108 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

must be suffering yet, and never cease to suffer. Evidently, 
no being could suffer more than one eternal death, for one 
eternal death would occupy the whole of eternity; but to 
suffer all the punishment due to all the sinners he redeemed, 
Christ must suffer as many eternal deaths as there are re- 
deemed sinners. 

A book has been written to prove that Christ suffered in 
his Divine nature, as well as in the human; that the Eternal 
Logos did actually endure an inconceivable amount of pain 
and anguish. The argument is an elaborate failure. The 
author attempts to maintain, that inasmuch as the sufferings 
of Christ are predicated of him as one person, and inasmuch 
as this one person is compounded of two natures, therefore 
both natures must have suffered. On the same principle, we 
might prove that when it is said our Saviour was ''thirty years 
of age,^' the statement includes both natures, and makes the 
Divinity as young as the humanity. In the same manner it 
might be shown that the Godhead hungered and thirsted, ate 
and drank, was weary and slept, actually died upon the cross, 
and left the universe three days without a father ! The doc- 
trine that the Divine nature of Jesus suffered is not sustained 
by any declaration of Holy Scripture, nor can it be deduced 
thence by any fair process of reasoning. The suffering of 
the Logos was unnecessary; for, as the two natures constituted 
but one person, the suffering of the inferior nature must be 
as meritorious as if the superior itself had suffered. Indeed, 
the thing was naturally impossible ; for one of the essential 
attributes of an infinite Spirit must be perfect blessedness ; 
and perfect blessedness is incompatible, not only with actual 
suffering, but even with the possibility of suffering. 

It has been supposed that Emmanuel's mental anguish was 
the grief of his pure and henevolent human heart for a sinful 
and suffering world, and especially for the Jewish people; 
and that his intense love and solicitude, his agony of inter- 



THE MYSTERIOUSAGONY. 109 

cession for sinners, was more than his human nature could 
support without celestial succor. It is very likely that these 
were drops of bitterness in his cup ; but these were not all 
the bitter portion. It is very likely that the vision of Jeru- 
salem's guilt, and ^^ the wrath unto the uttermost " that was 
soon to come upon the chosen people; their unbelief, and 
blind rejection of the gospel, and obstinate adherence to an 
abrogated and soulless ceremonial, and all their woes for so 
many centuries of crime and retribution ; with all the wicked- 
ness of the G-entile world, the delusions of idolatry, the blas- 
phemy and sacrilege of superstition, the wanton revelry of 
vice, and suffering of persecuted virtue; the general pro- 
fligacy, and forgetfulness of God, and bitter scorn of the 
blood-sealed Testament of his dying love ; and the horror and 
hopelessness of guilty death-beds, and the desolations of war 
and pestilence, and all the judgments of Heaven poured out 
upon successive generations of ungodliness, and the whole 
panorama of human misery down to the end of time, and 
the weeping and wailing that ascend evermore from the place 
of final punishment; — it is very likely that all this passed 
before the omniscient spirit of our Saviour in Gethsemane, and 
constituted one cause of his inconceivable sorrow. But there 
was a still deeper and more mysterious significance in his 
agony. A heavier burden pressed him to the earth, and 
forced the red drops steaming from out his blessed heart. 

Dr. Lightfoot and others have conjectured that the agony 
of Jesus in the garden was a struggle with the prince of 
darkness : that Satan met him there in a very terrific bodily 
shape; that it was through this apparition he ^' began to be 
sore amazed and very heavy,'' and that it was against this 
"angel of the bottomless pit" the "angel from heaven" 
appeared to strengthen him. It is quite reasonable to sup- 
pose that a conflict with the Wicked One, though perhaps 
entirely of a mental character, was a considerable source of 



110 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

the sufiferiug here recorded. Christ came to destroy the 
works of the devil. This single aim has o<;cupied his heart, 
his head, his hands, ever since he entered the world. The 
decisive struggle is near. To-morrow, on Mount Calvary, the 
victory shall be consummated. To-morrow, on Mount Calvary, 
he shall bruise the old serpent's head, beyond all power of 
healing. He shall come up from the garden, " with dyed gar- 
ments,'' "travelling in the greatness of his strength,'' and 
" mighty to save 3" and he shall trample the hosts of hell 
" in his anger, and make them drunk in his fury ; for the 
day of vengeance is in his heart, and the year of his redeemed 
is come 3" and he shall "spoil principalities and powers, 
making a show of them openly, triumphing over them" by 
his cross, and leading captive the captivity of his people. 
This is the victory anticipated in his late announcement : 
"Now is the prince of this world judged : now shall he be 
cast out." Satan knows his assailant, and trembles for his 
throne. He gathers all his forces to Gethsemane, and plies 
the Son of God with his heaviest artillery. Does not Saint 
Luke refer to this very night, when he says that " the devil, 
having ended all the temptation, departed from him for a 
season ?" Is not that season now accomplished, and is not 
this the time of the fiend's return ? Is not this " the hour 
and the power of darkness," from which he prayed the Father 
to save him ? Is not this the long-foreboded advent of " the 
prince of this world " against the Champion of our hopes ? 
True, "he hath nothing" in Christ — no fallen nature on 
which he can work, no sinful passion to which he can appeal, 
no principle of evil ready to act as his ally, no possible means 
of diverting him from his purpose, or defeating his redemption 
of our race ; yet he can inflict upon that sinless human soul 
an inconceivable amount of sufl'ering ; and feeling the utter 
hopelessness of his own cause, and foreseeing the speedy 
subversion of his own empire, he gathers up all his strength, 



THE MYSTERIOUS AGONY. Ill 

and assails his Conqueror with all the virulence of infernal 
hate, with all the fury of a desperate revenge, till the appeal to 
the Father and the sweat of blood bring down the angel, not 
to release from the conflict, but to strengthen for the victory. 
But little need be said concerning what has all along been 
anticipated, though it is by far the most important point of 
all; namely, the vicarious and sacrificial cliaract&r of the 
sufferings of our Lord. The Scripture proof is ample, that 
he suffered in our stead, as our substitute, to atone for our 
sins, and procure our salvation. Take the following from 
Isaiah : — ^' Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our 
sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions, he was 
bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace 
was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we 
like sheep have gone astray : we have turned every one to his 
own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us 
all." Take the following from Saint Paul : — "All have 
sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being jus- 
tified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in 
Christ Jesus ; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation 
through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the 
remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of 
God; that he might be just and the justifier of him that 
believeth in Jesus." To the same purport speak Saint John 
and Saint Peter : — " He is the propitiation for our sins, 
and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole 
world." *' Christ hath once suffered for sins, the just for 
the unjust, that he might bring us to God." What do these 
passages express, if not the doctrine of substitution and atone- 
ment ? What do these inspired men intend to teach, if not 
that Christ suffered in our place, to procure our pardon? 
And was it only upon the cross that it pleased the Father " to 
bruise him," to "put him to grief," to "make his soul an 
offering for sin ?" His sufferings began with his human life. 



112 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

and all that he suffered was for human guilt. Almost every 
variety of affliction — hunger and thirst, poverty and scorn, 
calumny and reproach, weariness of body and anguish of soul, 
malice of enemies and faithlessness of friends, the persecution 
of men in power and the assaults of '^ wicked spirits in high 
places" — perhaps all that humanity is liable to suffer, except 
remorse of conscience and the wrath of God — was wrung into 
his single cup. But now he suffers as he never suffered 
before. In the whole history of his sorrows, from its begin- 
ning in Bethlehem to its conclusion in Calvary, there is not 
another scene like this. " Is it nothing to you, all ye that 
pass by ? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto 
his sorrow" in G-ethsemane ! Is it not now that he "bears 
the sins of many ?" Is it not now that he is " stricken for 
the transgressions of his people ?" Is it not now that he 
begins to " pour out his soul unto death ?" Is it not now 
that one mighty instalment of the vast redemption-price is 
demanded, and paid down by our Surety ? Why that sore 
amazement ? Is it not the anticipated " chastisement of our 
peace V Why that mental heaviness ? Is it not the laying 
on of "the iniquity of us all?" Why that exceeding sorrow ? 
Is it not the Almighty putting "him to grief?" Why that 
bloody perspiration ? Is it not the Father bruising his Well- 
Beloved in the wine-press? Why that mysterious agony? 
Is it not "the travail of his soul" for the recovery of ours? 
Why that angelic sympathy ? Is it not the mingled cup of 
our woes put into his hand — the cup from which humanity 
recoils, but which cannot pass away ? 0, yes ! He suffers 
for human sinners ; and though his sufferings are not the 
exact penalty of guilt, not the precise amount of punishment 
due for crime, yet they are a perfect and satisfactory substi- 
tute for all the pain that every human sinner deserves to en- 
dure. The claims of the Divine law are as strongly asserted, 
and the principles of the Divine administration are as 



THE MYSTERIOUS AGONY. 113 

thoroughly vindicated, in the sufferings of the Substitute, as 
they could have been in the sufferings of the sinner ; and in 
virtue of this great Sacrifice, the sinner may be pardoned, 
without the slightest infringement of the Eternal Holiness 
and Justice. The Father's infliction of anguish — anguish 
the most excruciating and indescribable — upon the sinner's 
Substitute, though that Substitute is his own beloved Son, is 
a more appalling exhibition of his invincible hatred to sin, 
and his inflexible purpose to punish the transgressor — a more 
emphatic assertion of his high regard for his own righteous 
government, and his jealousy for the purity and happiness of 
his intelligent universe — a more powerful appeal to the moral 
sensibilities of man, a mightier prevention of vice, and 
stronger regard to virtue — than could have been furnished to 
other worlds in the eternal damnation of the whole human 
race. Had all the teeming millions of earth's fallen popula- 
tion been '^cast alive into the lake of fire,^' their hope- 
less anguish would have been a far less striking display of 
the Divine Holiness than the ^^ agony and bloody sweat" of 
Jehovah's Fellow in Gethsemane ; and their ^' weeping and 
wailing'^ through unknown ages of reverseless doom, would 
have been a far less terrific demonstration of the Divine jus- 
tice than the supplication of the Well-Beloved Sufferer — 
" Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me I" 
Doubtless Jesus endured as keen, if not as complicate, an 
anguish, when he lay struggling upon the turf, as when he 
hung writhing upon the tree ; and if the mighty atonement, 
which reconciles Heaven and earth, was completed on Cal- 
vary, it was at least begun in Grethsemane. 

*' The man of sorrow now 
He doth indeed appear, 
Beneath my guilty burden bow, 
And tremble with my fear. 



114 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

*' His pain is my relief,' 

And doth my load remove ; 
Forj 0, if all his soul is grief, 
Yet all his heart is love !" 

How should this view of my Saviour's sufferings imbitter 
to me my sins, and sweeten my cup of sorrows ! How highly 
should I estimate "ihsLt price — all price beyond" — ^by which 
my poor soul is ransomed from endless suffering ! How 
faithfully should I imitate the beautiful example of fortitude, 
submission, and holy trust, which his recorded sufferings fur- 
nish ! What love and gratitude should I cherish toward 
such a friend — what a joyful willingness to suffer for him 
"who trembled, wept, and bled for me!" And 0, what 
bliss will it be, when all the sufferings of earth are over, to 
behold in heaven the glorified Sufferer for my sins; and, 
as one of his redeemed, to be glorified with him for evermore ! 
But if I '^neglect so great salvation" — if I spurn the mercy 
procured for me at so incalculable a cost — ^how deep my stu- 
pidity, how base my ingratitude, how fearful my amount of 
guilt, and how intolerable the cup of vengeance I must drink 
in hell! 



THE GREAT SUBSTITUTION. 115 



VIL— THE GREAT SUBSTITUTION. 

The Cross is the standard of Christianity — " the fountain- 
light of all our day" — the constant theme of prophetic song — 
the subject of apostolic preaching and glorying — the central 
point around which gathered the affections and hopes of the 
primitive believers — the grand vital truth for which they 
bore to live and dared to die. What is our religion without 
its High-priest and its Sacrifice ? What avails it that the Son 
of God entered our world and assumed our nature — that he 
set us an example of perfect obedience and patient suffering — 
that he revealed the will of the Father, and died in attesta- 
tion of his doctrine — if he did not also atone for our sins, and 
provide for our complete and everlasting restoration to the 
forfeited favor and image of God? This was our greatest 
need; and this — thanks to his infinite love — was the main 
object of his advent. For this he left his throne, and relin- 
quished his glory, and took the form of a servant, and lived a 
life of sorrow, and poured out his soul unto death. 

Of the nature and extent of his sufferings, it becomes us to 
speak with deference. Some of them were very mysterious 
and quite incomprehensible. We know, however, that his 
sufferings were not the sufferings of his Godhead, for a nature 
essentially blessed must be superior to the possibility of pain ; 
nor the remorse of a sinner, for a being who has never sinned 
can never experience remorse; nor the displeasure of the 
Father, for the Father declares himself ever well pleased in 



116 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

his Son ; nor the penalty of the law, for the penalty of the 
law is everlasting exclusion from happiness and hope. There 
is a theory which represents him as enduring all that was due 
to all the sinners for whom he suffered — paying down in his 
own person, as the price of their pardon, the full sum of an- 
guish that Justice would have exacted of them. From this 
view we are obliged to dissent. It was naturally impossible ; 
for every human sinner deserves eternal death ; and to suffer 
all the desert of every human sinner, Christ must suffer eter- 
nal death multiplied by the whole number of human sinners. 
It would have been obviously unjust ; for the sufferings of 
Christ were infinitely more valuable than the sufferings of all 
the sinners in the universe ; and to require of him, as man's 
substitute, all that would have been required of man, would 
be to require more than an equivalent, like requiring for a 
given quantity of earth an equal quantity of gold. And it 
was as unnecessary as it would have been unjust; for a sin- 
less being cannot be obliged to suffer, and his voluntary suf- 
fering for the good of others must be meritorious, and the 
union of the Divine Nature with the human in the person of 
the sufferer must render the merit infinite ; so that a much 
less amount of suffering in the Grod-man than was due to the 
whole human race would be sufficient satisfaction for their sin, 
and to exact more than was sufficient would be contrary alike 
to wisdom and to goodness. 

Of the extent of the Saviour's sufferings we are nowhere 
informed in Scripture. Nor is the information necessary to our 
comfort and assurance. It is not the keenness of anguish, 
nor the depth of infamy, but the sinlessness of the victim, 
and the glorious dignity of his nature, that renders his 
vicarious undertaking meritorious, even to the satisfaction of 
Divine Justice, and the expiation of human guilt. We know, 
indeed, that his sufferings were various, continued, and incon- 
ceivably dreadful ; that he bore all the innocent infirmities of 



THE GREAT SUBSTITUTION. 117 

our fallen nature ; that his life was one of poverty and unpa- 
ralleled tribulation^ that confederate men and devils pursued 
him with unspeakable malice from the manger to the tree ; 
that he endured great bodily pain and peculiar mental an- 
guish ; that he suffered from sympathy with the afflicted, and 
from compassion for the guilty ; that he agonized in Olivet 
till he perspired blood, and angelic agency was necessary for 
his succor ; that he was most ungratefully treated by his own 
beloved disciples — betrayed by one, denied by another, forsaken 
of all ; that, without a crime, and with only the mockery of a 
trial, he was condemned to death with the vilest criminals, in 
a manner the most excruciating and ignominious that human 
skill and diabolic hate could invent ; that he bore the tor- 
ture of the thorn, the scourge, the spike, the spear, and all the 
complication and refinement of anguish comprehended in a 
Roman crucifixion, aggravated by the taunts of the triumph- 
ant priesthood, the jeers of the ruffian soldiery, and the bitter 
scorn of the multitude ; that, amidst his innumerable woes, the 
Eternal Father withdrew the light of his countenance, and 
left his Well-Beloved to tread the wine-press alone, and 
wrestle out the ransom of mankind in tears and blood, while 
mute nature mourned in sympathy, and the insensate rocks 
shuddered with horror, and the saints awoke from out their 
sepulchres ; and it is enough for us to know that these " un- 
known sorrows and sufferings — ^by him felt, but to us incom- 
prehensible" — were such, both in kind and degree, as to 
constitute an ample atonement for the sins of men, and render 
the proffer of forgiveness to all penitent believers consistent 
with every principle of the moral government of God. 

Some imagine that Christ suffered merely as a martyr, in 
attestation of the truth which he taught, and as an example 
of finished virtue to his followers. How does this opinion 
agree with the following language of Isaiah? ^^He was 
wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our ini- 



118 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

quities : the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and 
with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone 
astray : we have turned every one to his own way ; and the 
Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."* The chapter 
from which this passage is quoted has been called ^^ The True 
Crucifix." That it relates to Christ and his sufferings, no 
believer in the New Testament can doubt. Written more 
than seven centuries before the events which it describes, his- 
tory itself could scarcely be more accurate and explicit. It 
is the text from which Philip preached Christ in the Ethio- 
pian chariot ; and it is quoted by Peter, with the same appli- 
cation, in the second chapter of his first epistle. It would be 
difficult to express, with greater clearness and strength than 
it is here expressed by the prophet, the vicarious and sacri- 
ficial character of the sufferings of Christ. The language 
evidently implies the substitution of Christ for the sinner — 
the substitution of his voluntary sufferings for the sinner's 
deserved punishment — in consideration of which the sinner 
may be accepted of God, and freely forgiven. We shall 
endeavor to show that this view agrees with the teachings 
of the New Testament. The proof may be distinguished into 
two kinds : — TJie Incidental Evidence of Facts, and The Ex- 
plicit Verbal Testimony of Heaven. 

I. Beginning with the former, let it be observed that 
Christ was a sinless sufferer. His accusers proved nothing 
against him. His judges found " no fault in him." Judas 
confessed that he had "betrayed innocent blood." Demons 
acknowledged him " The Holy One of Grod." The Father 
declared himself "well pleased" in his Son. The prophet 
testifies that " he did no iniquity, neither was there any deceit 
in his mouth." The apostle describes him as "holy, harm- 
less, undefiled, and separate from sinners." And yet he suf- 

* Isainh liii. 5, 6. 



THE GREAT SUBSTITUTION. 119 

fered. He suffered voluntarily. He suffered without obliga- 
tion. He suffered what he might have avoided. It was not 
forced upon him by power. It did not overtake him by sur- 
prise. He foresaw all. He predicted all. He chose to 
suffer. ^' He went as a lamb to the slaughter." He embraced 
the felon's cross with joy. It was love that sustained him — 
love that impelled him — love for perishing sinners. It was 
"for the joy that was set before him/' in the future blessed- 
ness of redeemed millions, that he " endured the cross, despis- 
ing the shame." 

Here is a most remarkable fact ; and, on any other suppo- 
sition than that of substitution and sacrifice, wholly inexpli- 
cable. Why did Jesus suffer ? He had no sin of his own 
to suffer for. He must have suffered for the sins of others. 
It has been alleged to be unreasonable and unjust that the 
innocent should suffer for the guilty. Nay, is it not un- 
reasonable and unjust that the innocent should suffer at 
all? Is not all suffering the fruit of sin? "Would there 
have been any suffering, had there been no sin? Why 
then should he suffer who has never sinned ? All suffer- 
ing is either corrective or punitive. Jesus has no fault to 
correct, no guilt to punish. And yet he suffers. Why 
this anomaly ? As far as we know, it is the only instance 
in the universe. All other sufferers are sinners. But here 
is a sinless sufferer. Here is the immaculate Son of God, 
suffering as if he were the chief of sinners. And it is the 
Father who has ^'bruised" him. It is the Father who has 
"wounded" him. It is the Father who has "put him to 
grief" It is the Father who has " made his soul a sacrifice." 
The Father is "well pleased" with him; yet he is "smitten 
of God and afllicted." The Father loves him with an infinite 
love; yet he is treated as the object of an intense displeasure. 
He needs no correction, deserves no punishment; yet he 
endures an inconceivable anguish — yet he bears an insupport- 



120 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. - 

able burden. Explain this paradox. Solve this enigma. It is 
utterly impossible, unless you admit the doctrine of atonement. 

Bear in mind, also, that Christ was crucified for claiming 
equality with God — for claiming the titles, honors, attributes, 
and prerogatives of God. His enemies protested against the 
claim, and accused the claimant of blasphemy. He admitted 
the fact, but denied the deduction. He reaffirmed and vin- 
dicated his claim. That claim was true or false. If false, 
Christ was an impostor. If Christ was an impostor, the New 
Testament is a forgery, and Christianity a cheat. Who of us 
is prepared for such a conclusion ? Who doubts the truth 
and inspiration of the Evangelical Record ? Who does not 
believe Christ to be ^^ a teacher come from God ?" But if we 
admit this, we must admit also the truth of his doctrine and 
the correctness of his claim. Then, what an astonishing 
spectacle have we in the suffering Jesus ! '^ God manifest in 
the flesh" sweating ^^ great drops of blood V ^' God manifest 
in the flesh" expiring upon the malefactor's cross ! How the 
wonder heightens ! It is not merely an innocent man suffer- 
ing voluntarily and by Divine appointment. It is God him- 
self, suffering in human nature. And for what purpose, if 
not for the expiation of human guilt ? Philosophy can deve- 
lop no other. Christianity assigns no other. God became 
man, that he might be man's substitute. Messiah was ^' cut 
off, but not for himself." 

This argument is strengthened by the peculiar circumstances 
which attended his sufferings. Why that mysterious agony ? 
Why that complaint of desertion ? What martyr ever sweat 
blood from fear ? What good man was ever forsaken of God 
in his last moments ? Was there not something peculiar in 
his passion — something anomalous and transcendent in its 
design ? Was it merely to attest the truth of his teaching, 
and furnish his people an example of heroic patience ? Ut- 
terly incredible and absurd ! And what means that promise 



THE GREAT SUBSTITUTION. 121 

to his penitent fellow-sufferer — that promise which none but 
a God could make ? Why, amid the anguish and horror of 
that awful hour, did he open paradise to a departing soul ? 
Was it not designed as an expression of the vicarious and ex- 
piatory nature of his death):* And whence that three. hours 
preternatural darkness ? Why frowned the heavens ? Why 
quaked the earth ? Why clave the rocks ? Why rent the 
vail of the temple ? Why opened the graves of the saints ? 
What martyr's anguish ever elicited such sympathy from 
nature ? What prophet's mission ever won such attestation 
from the dead? What mean these marvels, if there was 
nothing of extraordinary significance in the sufferings which 
they signalized ? 

And why did Christ institute a memorial of his passion in 
the Holy Supper, and command his disciples to continue it 
till his second coming ? Why did he select, for constant com- 
memoration by his Church, the most humiliating fact in his 
whole history — that of his crucifixion ? Why not rather his 
birth, which brought the angels down from heaven ? Why not 
his baptism, which brought the Holy Spirit down from heaven ? 
Why not the resuscitation of Lazarus, or of the ruler's daugh- 
ter, or of the widow's son ? Why not his own resurrection or 
ascension ? Why did he pass by all the imposing events and 
stupendous miracles of his life, and fix upon a passage which 
the Jew would scorn and the Grentile would ridicule ? Why 
did he rear an ignominious Cross as the rallying-point of his 
people's hopes, and the object of his people's glorying ? Why, 
if his death, like that of the prophets and apostles, was only 
a testimony to the truth, and a pattern of meek endurance for 
his disciples ? Why, if there was no atoning virtue in his 
mangled body and his streaming blood ? 

And why do the Holy Scriptures lay so much stress upon 
the sufferings of Christ, in connection with the salvation of 
man ? Why is our salvation constantly associated with the 



122 H E A D Xi A N D S OF FAITH. 

merit of his passion ? Why not rather with his birth, his bap- 
tism, his ministry, his miracles, his example ? Is it not that 
he suffered in our stead ? Otherwise, how could there be any 
saving virtue in his sufferings ? The force of this argument 
has been felt and acknowledged even by those who deny the 
doctrine of substitution. That great exponent of ^' Unitarian 
Christianity,'' the late Dr. Channing, makes the remarkable 
admission — " That the Scriptures ascribe the remission of sins 
to the death of Christ, with an emphasis so peculiar, that we 
ought to consider this event as having a special influence in 
removing punishment." His ingenuous mind overleaped the 
barriers of his theory. Had he but apprehended fully the 
blessed truth so clearly stated by the prophet ! — " Surely 
he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was 
wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniqui- 
ties : the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with 
his stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone 
astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the 
Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." 

II. But let us come to the more direct and explicit 
TESTIMONY OF ScRiPTURE. Let US classify the passages and 
expressions which relate to the sufferings of Christ, and see 
if they do not furnish indubitable evidence of a substitution 
for sinners, and a satisfaction for sin. 

Take the statements which are merely historical. How are 
we '^reconciled to Grod by the death of his Son," and how 
does Christ " destroy the Devil through death P" Why is it 
not his life ? How does he " make peace through the blood 
of his cross/' and '^ reconcile both Jews and Gentiles unto 
God by his cross P^' Why is it not his crown or his sceptre ? 
Why does Paul determine to know nothing among his breth- 
ren but " Christ crucified P" Why not Christ born, or Christ 
baptized ? Why does he asseverate so solemnly his glorying 



THE GREAT SUBSTITUTION. 123 

only ^' in the ci^oss of Christ ?" Why not his manger, or his 
carpenter's tools ? Why sing the apocalyptic saints and angels 
"unto the Lamb that was slain ?'' Why not the Lamb that 
was raised again, or the Lamb that was glorified ? Why are 
we said to be "redeemed by his hlood" — "justified by his 
hlood'^ — "washed/' "cleansed/' "sanctified/' "made nigh/' 
and admitted " into the Holiest/' all "by his hlood V Why 
not his holy example, his moral teaching, or his miracles ? 
Why so much said of Christ's sufferings, which cannot be 
said of any other sufferings, nor of any thing else in his own 
personal history, unless there is some peculiar connection be- 
tween his sufferings and our salvation — unless they are indeed 
the meritorious cause of the blessings with which they are 
thus associated ? 

Take the expressions relative to commerce. What means 
such language as this? — "Ye are hougJit with a price" — 
^^ purchased with his own hlood'^ — " redeemed with the pre- 
cious blood of Christ" — "gave his life a ransom for all" — 
*' in whom we have redemption through his blood." These 
expressions need but little explanation. Every child knows 
what it is to buy, to purchase. To ransom or redeem is to 
buy back, to purchase back. The word is used to express the 
recovery of an alienated possession, or the release of a captive 
or a victim, by the payment of a price. The nature of the 
redemption is to be ascertained from the circumstances of the 
redeemed. If they are guilty, their redemption is a purchased 
pardon. If they are slaves of sin, their redemption is a pur- 
chased deliverance from the bondage. If they are insolvent 
debtors, their redemption is a purchased discharge from the 
obligation. If they are doomed culprits of the law, their re- 
demption is the purchased remission of the deserved penalty. 
Such, to all who believe, are the benefits of the cross of Christ. 
Their guilt is pardoned; their yoke is broken; their debt is 



124 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

cancelled; their doom is averted; their heritage is recovered; 
and all through the Redeemer's suffering in their stead. 

Take the phraseology referring to sacrifice. How is Christ 
^^ the high-priest of our profession'^ — '^ a faithful and merciful 
high-priest in things pertaining to God" — if he did not per- 
form on our behalf the priestly office of atonement ? How is 
hethe"La??i& of God that taketh away the sin of the world/' 
unless "he was led as a Lamb to the slaughter'^ for the expi- 
ation of our offences ? What signify these sayings ? — '^ He 
hore our sins in his own body on the tree'^ — "once offered 
to bear the sins of many'' — " offered one sacrifice for sins" 
— " put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" — " gave him- 
self for us an offering and a sacrifice to God" — " Christ our 
passover, sacrificed {or us" — "made reconciliation for the 
gins of the people" — "a propitiation through faith in his 
blood" — "sanctified through the offering of the body of 
Jesus once for all" — "by one offering perfected for ever 
them that are sanctified" — "through whom we have now re- 
ceived the atonement." What means all this, if Christ was 
not truly both our slaughtered victim and our officiating 
priest ? Read the Epistle to the Hebrews, and tell us how 
the priesthood of Christ was greater than that of Aaron, and 
his sacrifice superior to all those of the tabernacle and the 
temple. Deny the sacrificial character of his sufferings, and 
the whole epistle is an inexplicable enigma. In short, both 
Jesus and his apostles apply to his sufferings terms and epi- 
thets, commonly employed by both Jew and Gentile, to de- 
note atonement and satisfaction for sin ; and if his sufferings 
were not vicarious and piacular, they would scarcely have 
found language better adapted to deceive the minds of men 
on a subject above all others important to their happiness in 
time and their hopes for eternity. 

Take the particles expressive of substitution. There are 



THE GREAT SUBSTITUTION. 125 

three of them in the original, all in our version translated 
^^for," ^' My body broken for you'' — " my blood shed for 
you" — "lay down my life /or the sheep'' — "once suffered 
for sins, the just for the unjust" — "offered for us" — 
" sacrificed for us " — " crucified for us " — " slain for us" — 
"made sin /or us" — "made a curse for us" — "delivered 
for our offences " — " delivered up for us all " — " died for 
us" — 'for our sins" — "/or the ungodly" — "for all" — "for 
every man.'^ Who does not see in these expressions the 
doctrine of substitution ? The Socinian theory — that Jesus 
suffered simply as our example, for our improvement — falls 
far below their meaning. When the prophet says, " The son 
shall not die for the iniquity of his father," who understands 
him to mean for his father's example or reformation ? When 
he says, " The wicked man shall die for his own wickedness," 
who understands him to mean for his own example or refor- 
mation ? When we say of a murderer, " He dies for his sin," 
we mean because of his sin — on account of his sin. The 
particles must have the same sense, when it is said Christ 
died for our sins. His sufferings bear the same relation to 
our sins, as ours would have borne had we suffered for them 
ourselves. His death is an expression of the Divine dis- 
pleasure against our sins. If he did not die as our substitute, 
to procure our exemption from punishment, how are we in- 
debted to his death for pardon, any more than to the death of 
Peter or Paul ? Christ suffered in our stead ; and we, upon 
our penitence, are pardoned in consideration of his suffering. 
Take the scriptures declaratory of design. " The Father 
sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world" — "that the world 
through him might be saved " — " that we might live through 
him " — " might be made the righteousness of Grod in him " — 
" might not perish, but have eternal life." Christ gave his 
flesh "for the life of the world" — shed his blood "for the 
remission of sins" — suffered to "put away sin" — "to tah^ 



126 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

away sin^^ — "to make reconciliation for sin''— 'Hhat he 
might hring us to God'' — ^'reconcile us to God" — '•'■redeem 
us from all iniquity" — ^^ purify unto himself a peculiar 
people" — ^^ sanctify the people with his own blood." There 
is alienation — there is enmity — between God and man. Man 
hates the holiness of God : God hates the sinfulness of man. 
Man has violated the law, and God is bound to punish the 
violation. How is reconciliation to be effected, and amity 
restored ? The innocent must suffer for the guilty. Christ 
must die for man. Without this, pardon would be impolitic, 
and an act of mercy to the criminal would be an act of in- 
justice to the universe. Without this, there would be no 
adequate exhibition of God's infinite abhorrence of sin, and 
his righteous determination to punish ; and the forgiveness 
of a single offence would be a universal indulgence to crime. 
Atonement or vengeance is the stern alternative. '^ Without 
shedding of blood is no remission." Justice interposes an 
insuperable barrier between man and mercy. The law must 
have its demand, either upon the sinner or upon a sinless 
substitute. The penalty must be levied upon the delinquent, 
unless satisfaction be rendered by a surety. As well no law 
as no penalty; as well no threatening as no infliction. But 
lo ! Christ is smitten for us, '^ and with his stripes we are 
healed." His death satisfies the law; renders our salvation 
consistent with every principle of the Divine government; 
and demonstrates to men and angels, that while penitence 
need not despair of forgiveness, incorrigible guilt cannot hope 
for impunity. This is truly an amazing scheme; by which 
the greatest possible display of mercy is made also the most 
illustrious manifestation of justice ; by which sin is shown 
to be an immeasurable evil, salvation an incalculable blessing, 
and the wisdom as well as the goodness of God 

"A vast unfathomable sea, 

Where all our thoughts are drowned." 



THE GREAT SUBSTITUTION. 127 

Take the language indicative of necessity. — '' The Son of 
Man must suffer many things, and be rejected and killed'' — 
'^ must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be cru- 
cified'' — ^^ must be lifted up, as Moses lifted up the serpent 
in the wilderness." Why this ^^ must,'' if there was no ne- 
cessity ? " Thus it is written, and thus it heliooved Christ to 
suffer." Why ? Because it was " written ?" But why was 
it written? Because it was ^^ exjpedient XkdAs one should die 
for the people." Neither the predetermination of God, nor 
the prediction by the prophet, originated the necessity ; but 
the necessity occasioned both the predetermination and the 
prediction. But why this original necessity ? Because with- 
out such an expedient there could be no salvation for sinners. 
He himself declares his own death as necessary to our salva- 
tion as the death of the seed-wheat to the future harvest.* 
The declaration is confirmed by his prayer in the garden, the 
night before his crucifixion. The first time he said : — '■'- my 
Father! if it he possible, let this cup pass from me." The 
second time he said : — ^^ my Father ! if this cup may 
not pass from me, except I drink it, thy will be done." Why 
was he not released from the fearful undertaking ? Did the 
Father take pleasure in his anguish ? Was the Father indif- 
ferent to his cries and tears ? Did he bruise his "■ Well-Be- 
loved," and put his sinless soul to grief, and inflict upon him 
all those inconceivable tortures, without a necessity? All 
that we know of God forbids the thought. The cup might 
'^ not pass" from Jesus — it was not '^ possible,'^ since man's 
only hope of mercy lay in his drinking it to the dregs. " It 
became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all 
things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the Captain 
of their salvation perfect through suffering;" that is, to 
make him a perfect Saviour through suffering — to complete, 
through suffering, his qualification for his mighty enterprise. 

* John xii. 24. 



128 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

Moral precepts could not save us ; virtuous example could not 
save us ; all the wisdom and power of God could not help us 
without a suffering Saviour. A sacrifice must be offered to 
appease insulted Justice, and that sacrifice must be of infinite 
value. ^'- The Prince of Life '' must " pour out his soul unto 
death.'' There is no other method of saving man, which 
would not render the sceptre in the hand of God powerless, 
and the throne whereon he sits insecure. Had God forgiven 
the offender without satisfaction for the offence, what respect 
could thenceforth have been felt for his authority, or what 
reverence would thenceforth have been due to his name? 
Had he granted a general deed of amnesty, and recalled an 
alienated world to friendship, without any provision for up- 
holding his own sovereignty, and guarding the purity and 
happiness of other orders of being, what would his clemency 
have been, in effect, but a desecration of his character, a de- 
gradation of his majesty, a relinquishment of his claim upon 
the fealty of his subjects, and a proclamation of universal im- 
punity to crime ? The precept trampled, and the penalty not 
executed, would have warranted the belief, in other worlds as 
well as ours, that the asserted authority would never be en- 
forced — that the published denunciation would never be 
inflicted — that the transgressor would ever go unpunished; 
and thus the law of God would have been made a jest, and 
his government a mockery, as far as the fact was known. 
But lo, our Substitute appears, and bows himself to the sacri- 
fice \ and through the merit of his suffering, the sinner is 
restored to favor, while an everlasting stigma is fixed upon 
sin ; and the wisdom of God is glorified in the wondrous ex- 
pedient; and Holiness, and Justice, and Truth are enthroned 
in vindicated sovereignty by the side of triumphant Mercy. 
0, blessed solace for the troubled soul ! I meet a poor sinner, 
haunted by the dark imagery of remorse and terror, agonizing 
with the consciousness of an unsettled controversy between 



THE GREAT SUBSTITUTION. 129 

himself and Heaven^ and sinking into utter hopelessness un- 
der the dreary prospect of an undone eternity. What shall I 
say to calm the tempest of his fears, and ease his aching 
heart? Shall I tell him that God is "good" — " gracious '^ — 
*' merciful" — '^slow to anger" — "kind even to the unthank- 
ful and the evil ?" Verily, I would tell him this ; but I would 
tell him also that " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of 
the law, being made a curse for us." I would point to Olivet — 
I would point to Golgotha, and say : — Poor heavy-laden bro- 
ther ! behold thy Divine Substitute bearing thy griefs, carry- 
ing thy sorrows, and receiving the chastisement of thy peace ! 
Behold the law magnified which thou hast violated, the jus- 
tice propitiated which thou hast insulted, the authority vindi- 
cated which thou hast trampled upon, the outraged majesty 
of Heaven appeased and reconciled, and all those attributes 
which have hitherto been thy terror and dismay forming into 
a canopy of defence above thee, and smiling down upon thee 
with infinite benignity ! 

We have adduced six classes of New Testament expres- 
sions. Any one of them seems sufficient to prove those suf- 
ferings vicarious and sacrificial. Concentrate this sixfold evi- 
dence, and it becomes overwhelming. The evangelical writers 
seem to have exhausted their skill in giving variety and inten- 
sity to language; and have scarcely left unemployed any 
possible collocation of words by which the doctrine of atone- 
ment could be taught. 

We have quoted exclusively from the New Testament, and the 
texts glanced at are scarcely a tithe of what might be presented. 
The Old Testament also is full of Christ. "To him give all 
the prophets witness." To him refer a thousand Jewish types. 
The path of the Church, from Eden to Sinai, and from Sinai to 
Calvary, was lined with finger-posts and mile-stones, point- 
ing the way and marking the distance to the cross. "Abra- 
ham desired to see Christ's day, and he saw it, and was glad." 
6* 



130 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

Job knew that his Redeemer lived, and should ^^ stand at the 
latter day upon the earth.'' Moses spoke of his advent, and 
symbolized his atonement, to the chosen tribes in the wilder- 
ness. Balaam prophesied ^^ from the top of the rock :" — ^' I 
shall see him, but not now : I shall behold him, but not 
nigh.'' The royal Psalmist sang the achievements of his 
cross, and raised the prelude of his coronation anthem. And 
what was the whole of ceremonial Judaism but symbolic 
Christianity? The priest and the victim, the altar and the 
incense, the mercy-seat sprinkled with blood, the scape-goat 
sent away into the wilderness — what were they all, but types 
which had their archetypes in heaven — foreshadowings of 
'^better things to come" — that greater substitution of the 
Innocent for the guilty — that mightier expiation wrought out 
for us by the agony of the Grod-man ? What the law exhibits 
in expressive emblem, the gospel announces by articulate 
revelation. This blessed doctrine pervades the whole volume 
of Scripture, and constitutes the key-note of its harmony; 
and ineffable is the joy of Faith, in tracing its progressive 
development from the earliest dawn to the perfect day — from 
the glimmerings of redemption through the first promise in 
Paradise, to the bursting of immortality from the riven tomb 
in Salem ! 

Pause we here over the magnitude of the work. Never 
were such difficulties so marvellously mastered. Behold the 
sinful race weltering in guilt and woe. Ah ! what hopeless- 
ness of agony ! what intensity of despair ! Mercy, with bleed- 
ing heart, bends weeping over the spectacle. Alas ! she 
cannot help. Holiness, Justice, and Truth sternly prohibit 
all interposition in their behalf, without satisfaction rendered 
for their sin. They have violated the law, and its sanctity 
must be vindicated. They have insulted the Sovereign, and 
his authority must be maintained. The curse which they 
have incurred, can be removed only by a sacrifice equal to 



THE GREAT SUBSTITUTION. 131 

their crimes. Eivers of oil and seas of blood will not avail 
for their ransom. Their guilt must be expiated by one pos- 
sessing their nature; but the victim must be pure as an 
angel, and not less in dignity than God. An immaculate 
man, an infinite creature, a suffering Deity must be their sub- 
stitute, and bear their sin and shame. Ah ! what wisdom can 
be adequate to such an emergency ? what expedient meet so 
mighty a paradox ? Hark ! the inquiry of " powers and prin- 
cipalities in heavenly places:'^ — ^'Whom shall we send, and 
who will go for us?'' ^' There is silence in heaven.'' The 
cherubim look earnestly upon one another, and the seraphim 
bow wondering at the throne. Again the inquiry; and while 
the angelic hosts look ineffable pity and ineffable despair, 
''one like unto the Son of man" presents himself, saying: — 
'' Here am I : send me." The offer is accepted : the pledge 
is given : prophets are commissioned : ceremonial types are 
instituted ; and, in the fulness of time, Christ comes into the 
world to save sinners : 

"And angels fly with eager joy, 
To bear the news to man ;" 

and Mercy leads the escort of the descending Redeemer; and 
Holiness and Justice and Truth meet her at the manger, and 
kiss her at the cross ; while the many-voiced song of the ran- 
somed, from the far-off future ages, falls on the ear of faith : — 
"Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his 
own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and 
his Father — unto him be glory and dominion for ever and 



ever — amen 



I" 



132 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 



VIII.— THE SYMBOLIC EVANGEL. 

The Bible is a book to be studied. Its meaning is not 
always obvious to the superficial reader. Many of its most 
instructive passages require much mental labor to detect their 
true significance and utility. On a mere casual perusal, they 
may appear of comparatively small importance ; but when we 
come to give them a thorough examination, hidden truths 
begin to develop themselves, and we find a bed of diamonds 
where we expected nothing but the sand which we saw upon 
the surface. He, therefore, who is either too indolent or too 
imbecile to think — to study — to investigate — to compare text 
with text — the fact with the prediction — the present sub- 
stance with the former shadow — must, in many instances, 
remain ignorant of the real force and beauty of Eevealed 
Truth. 

These observations are applicable to that remarkable pheno- 
menon recorded by the Evangelist as one of the accompani- 
ments of the crucifixion — the rending of the vail of the temple 
in twain from the top to the bottom. Many consider this 
singular occurrence as one of those prodigies which attended 
the death of our blessed Lord, in order merely to mark the 
importance of that event, and attract to it the attention of 
mankind. With this view they are satisfied. They institute 
no further inquiry — apprehend no greater utility of the won- 
der, no less obvious import of the record. But those who 



THE SYMBOLIC EVANGEL. 133 

endeavor to penetrate its typical meaning, and understand its 
emblematic design, will find in it a volume of truth — a trea- 
sure of grace — the gospel symbolized. Let us attempt its 
illustration. In doing this, it will be necessary, first, to 
describe the vail that was rent ; after which we shall be better 
able to understand its typical character ^ and the true signifi- 
cance of its rending at the very moment of the Messiah's 
death. 

I. The interior of the temple consisted of two compart- 
ments — the Holy Place, and the Most Holy. The former 
contained the emblems of the Divine service — the altar, the 
candlestick, and the table of show-bread ; the latter, the sym- 
bols of the Divine Presence — the ark of the covenant, sur- 
mounted by the mercy-seat, occupied by the Shekinah, and 
overshadowed by the wings of the cherubim. In the Holy 
Place the priests performed the more ordinary sacraments of 
worship — the daily oiFerings and prayers ; in the Most Holy 
dwelt the Visible Grlory of Jehovah, to which the high priest 
alone might approach, and he but once a year, and then with 
trembling and with sacrificial blood. Between these two apart- 
ments, and separating the one from the other, hung the vail 
which was rent at the crucifixion. 

The vail of the tabernacle and the vail of the temple were 
identical in material, texture, and use. Of the former we 
have a clear and full account in the book of Exodus. It was 
made of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, 
curiously wrought with cherubim ; and hung upon four pillars 
of shittim-wood, overlaid with gold, for a covering to the ark 
of the testimony. From the Second Book of Chronicles we 
learn that the vail in Solomon's temple was of the same kind, 
and answered the same purpose. It covered the place of 
Jehovah's manifestation. It concealed the Grlory of God. 
The Second Temple was, in all its essential features, and all 



134 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

its more important appendages, precisely similar to the former ; 
and the vail which was rent at the time of our Redeemer's 
death was of the same character, and occupied the same posi- 
tion, as that at first made by Moses, and that afterward by 
Solomon. Be it, then, distinctly borne in mind, that the 
vail mentioned by the Evangelist was that which concealed 
the Most Holy Place ; and when that vail was rent, the ark 
of the covenant, with its superincumbent mercy-seat and its 
sheltering cherubim, but long since deserted of its Glorious 
Occupant, stood forth to open view — a most significant repre- 
sentation of the design of Messiah's death. 

II. Let us inquire into the meaning of this remarkable 
emblem. 

The vail of the temple was emblematical of Christ's human- 
ity, and its rending represented his violent sacrificial death. 
''He hath consecrated for us,'' saith the apostle, "a new and 
living way into the Holiest through the vail — that is to say, 
his flesh." As the vail separated the Holy Place and the 
Most Holy, yet constituted the organ of communication be- 
tween the two ; so our sinful flesh is the barrier that prevents 
our approximation to the Eternal, but " the likeness of sinful 
flesh" assumed and sacrificed by the Son of God reopens the 
avenue of intercourse. " God was manifest in the flesh." 
''God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." 
Therefore, when he uttered his expiring cry, the vail of the 
temple was rent. The shadow moved with the substance. 
The type declared itself superseded by the antitype. Mount 
Zion bore witness to what was passing on Mount Calvary. 
AVhile the soul and the body of Jesus were violently torn 
asunder, the rending of the vail proclaimed the importance 
and the preciousness of the sacrifice. 

The vail of the temple was emblematical of the distinction 
between the Jews and the Gentiles, and its rending repre- 



THE SYMBOLIC EVANGEL. 135 

sented the abolition of that distinction by the gospel. The 
Mosaic religion was a national institution, provided for a 
separate and peculiar people. It contemplated chiefly the 
benefit of the children of Abraham. '^It was a small craft/' 
says Christmas Evans, ^' trading only with the land of Canaan." 
But the New Covenant, which Christ died to establish, offers 
salvation to sinners, not on the ground of any carnal relation- 
ship, but solely through faith in the Redeemer's merit. 
Christianity is a personal concern between every man and his 
Grod. Therefore it is adapted to Gentiles as well as Jews. 
^^ The promise is to all that are afar off, even as many as the 
Lord our God shall call." Christ died for all, and sent his 
apostles to preach the gospel to every creature. The sweet 
incense offered on Calvary fills the world with its fragrance. 
The fountain opened in Jerusalem sends forth its living 
waters into every land. The earthquake which rent the vail 
of the temple hath demolished for ever '^ the middle wall of 
partition" between Jews and Gentiles. 

The vail of the temple was emblematical of the obscurity 
which shrouded the doctrine of redemption, and its rending 
represented the illustration of that doctrine by the cross. Up 
to the period of the crucifixion, the Divine economy in the 
salvation of sinners was but imperfectly understood. Unin- 
spired men could not comprehend the medium and the method 
of reconciliation with their Maker. True, God was propi- 
tiated, and dwelt with his people. True, the sincere believer 
was justified, and the devout worshipper was accepted, and 
the departing saint was received into everlasting habitations. 
Yet clouds and darkness were round about the throne. The 
supplicating sinner was saved — he knew not how — through a 
redemption, of which he could no more comprehend the 
agency than he could calculate the preciousness. But the 
crucifixion developed the mystery, and the rending veil inti- 
mated its development. The sacrificial cross is the fountain- 



136 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

liglit, whence gracious beams shoot backward to the fall, and 
forward to the final restitution ; illustrating the relation qf 
man to his Maker, and clearing up the obscurity which in- 
vested the economy of salvation. As far as the way of Grod is 
comprehensible, it is now manifest. Where it involves infin- 
ity, of course, we still remain in darkness, and must remain 
in darkness for ever. But the purposes of the Divine Mercy, 
the chosen method of their accomplishment, and the sure and 
ample basis of a sinner's hope — these are fully unfolded and 
explained in the gospel, through the grand propitiatory offer- 
ing of Christ Jesus. 

The vail of the temple was emblematical of the mysterious- 
ness which characterized the Mosaic ritual, and its rending 
represented the abrogation of that ritual for a more simple 
and spiritual worship. The Jewish ceremonial was only 
the ^^ shadow of good things to come.'' Every part of the 
tabernacle and the temple service prefigured some parallel 
reality in the true evangelical worship. According to the 
law of Moses, ^^ without shedding of blood was no remission.'' 
Through the appointed medium of animal sacrifices the 
Almighty was propitiated; but this was only a ceremonial 
propitiation, available and efficacious merely through the anti- 
cipated merit of that real atonement which was to be offered 
once for all. The merit of those shadowy services was itself 
a shadow. They looked out to the coming of the great 
Deliverer, who should ^^turn away ungodliness from Jacob." 
The blood of bulls and goats could not open an effectual way 
into the Divine presence. The vail still remained before the 
mercy-seat, " the Holy G-host thereby signifying that the 
holiest of all was not yet made manifest :" that the mys- 
tery of the Mosaic ceremonial was yet undeveloped; that 
a better oblation was needed for the satisfaction of Heaven's 
insulted justice ; that something remained to be accomplished, 
to which all these services pointed, and of which they consti- 



THE SYMBOLIC EVANGEL. 137 

tuted the prevenient adumbration. But lo ! ^^ the fulness of 
the time V The promised Substitute appears : the true 
Passover — the Lamb of God — is slain; and henceforth the 
meaning of the typical worship ceaseth for ever. The whole 
mystery of the ceremonial shadows centred in the sacrificial 
cross, and in the sacrificial cross was finished. While the Prince 
of life poured out his soul unto death, the vail of the temple 
gave forth striking testimony to the sufficiency of the ofi"ering. 
The typical emblem of his body was rent. Then merged the 
anticipation in the reality. Then faded the moon and the 
stars before the risen Sun of righteousness. Then ended all 
the virtue and utility of those arbitrary institutions, which for 
so many ages had pointed significantly to the Hope of Israel. 
Judaism is henceforth an abrogated system ; and the continu- 
ation, on the part of man, of its once magnificent, but now 
unmeaning ceremonial, is criminal infatuation and rebellion. 

The vail of the temple was emblematical of our separation 
from God by sin, and its rending represented the freedom of 
access restored to believers through the mediation of Christ. 
Man, in his pristine purity, walked with God, and needed no 
mediator. The intercourse was direct and perfect. But sin 
entered, and God retired. The sinner is without God in the 
world. Unavailing are all his unaided efibrts to find God. 
Here the researches of reason and philosophy are futile. 
Here the highest human genius feels its imbecility. Here 
pagan wisdom gropes in darkness, bewildered with endless 
speculations ; till, weary of its fruitless wanderings after the 
Great Unknown, it bows down to the worship of a block or 
a brute, or adores even the spirit of evil. ^'Verily, thou art a 
God that hidest thyself.^^ Access to the Supreme is purely 
a matter of Divine permission and appointment. There is no 
approach, but through the medium and in the manner of his 
own gracious prescription. Under the Mosaic institution, he 
received a typical service, and admitted the believer to forgive- 



138 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

ness and favor ; but Deity sat concealed within the vail, and 
that vail symbolized with the barrier which sin had raised 
between man and his Maker — a barrier scarcely passed by 
adumbrative ordinances, and never removed till the atone- 
ment which those ordinances prefigured had lifted the curse 
from humanity. That atonement Christ made upon the cross. 
He "appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." 
Now the mystery is revealed. The legal restriction of the 
first covenant is removed by the merciful provision of the 
second. The mighty problem is solved, which transcended 
the intellect of former ages, and challenged the penetration 
of seer and sage. Adding the infinite worth of Divinity to 
the sufferings of an immaculate humanity, Jesus laid down 
his life under the curse of a law which he had not violated, 
and became 'Hhe author of eternal salvation to all them that 
obey him.'' And now the interposing vail is rent, the sinner 
may " come boldly to the throne of grace.'' Nothing is 
needful, but a penitential reliance upon that "meritorious 
cross and passion." The worship of the believer becomes a 
direct communication of the soul with Grod. He no longer 
gazes upon the mystic curtain which conceals the place of 
Jehovah's manifestation, and exclaims — "0 that I might 
come even to his seat !" Sprinkling himself with the blood 
of the cross, he draws nigh with full assurance of faith. He 
beholds not a consuming fire which no sinner may approach, 
but a compassionate and forgiving God. No cloud obscures 
his vision; no barrier intercepts his path. The Eternal 
Spirit becomes actually present to his soul. It is no poetic 
figure, but a gracious reality. He walks with God, dwells in 
God, and God in him. His worship is an intimate commu- 
nion with the Almighty — the breathing of a human heart into 
the very bosom of Divinity. 

The vail of the temple was emblematical of our retributive 
exclusion from the joys of Paradise, and its rending repre- 



THE SYMBOLIC EVANGEL. 139 

sented our restoration tlirougli the gospel to the hope of a 
blessed immortality. As the high-priest slew the victim 
without, and afterwards presented the blood within, so 
Christ — at once high-priest and victim — made his soul a sacri- 
fice for sin on earth, and then ascended to plead the merit 
of that sacrifice on behalf of sinners before the celestial mercy- 
seat. He ^' hath not entered into the holy places made with 
hands, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence 
of God for us.'' He stands before the throne as a lamb 
newly slain, ever living to make intercession for his people. 
When he took his departure from Olivet, and while the dis- 
ciples stood gazing after him, " a cloud received him out of 
their sight.'' The essential laws of their terrestrial dwelling- 
place prevented their feeble vision from following him farther. 
The cloudy vail closed behind him, and he was concealed in 
heaven. Keason cannot penetrate that vail. Philosophy can- 
not follow that flight. But where reason and philosophy fail, 
faith comes to our aid. Faith, with eagle eye and angel 
wing, pursues the ascending Saviour, nor pauses beneath the 
empyrean. Whither he hath gone we know, and the way 
we know; and though we cannot follow him now, we shall 
follow him hereafter. The vail behind which he hath passed 
is " rent in twain from the top to the bottom." Heaven is 
open above us, and earth itself is converted into a vestibule 
of heaven. Death is abolished. Life and immortality are 
brought to light. Christ's resurrection hath unsealed the 
sepulchre of every saint. He rose as our Head, and ascended 
as our Leader. No longer how we at the veiled entrance of 
the Holiest, and sigh for the vision of its glories. We have 
clear and palpable evidence of the life eternal. We know 
that our Redeemer liveth ; and because he liveth, we shall 
live also. We know that he "hath entered into the Holy 
Place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.'^ We 
know that he " was once offered to bear the sins of many ; 



140 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

and to them that look for him, he shall appear the second 
time, without a sin-offering, unto salvation.'' We know that 
"in his Father's house are many mansions;" and he hath 
gone " to prepare a place" for us ; and will certainly " come 
again, and receive" us unto himself; and where he is, there 
we shall be also. These are the assurances of faith. Hence- 
forth heaven and earth are one, and their connection is the 
cross of Christ. 

" The Holy to the Holiest leads— 
From thence our spirits rise ; 
And he that in thy statutes treads 
Shall meet thee in the skies." 

Such is the language of this great Symbolic Evangel — so 
many and so magnificent the lessons taught us by a single in- 
cident recorded in sacred story. How valuable must be that 
mine, of which one little vein reveals such incalculable wealth ! 
No wonder David loved the ancient Scriptures, and the Son 
of David enjoined their diligent perusal ! No wonder the 
saints of all ages have esteemed the sacred books as their 
dearest treasure, and martyrs have clung to them in the last 
agony of life, and many a man of God has pillowed his head 
upon them in death ! How should we prize the Gospel — the 
record of our redemption — the revelation of our immortality ! 
How should we glory in that which was " to the Jews a stum- 
bling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness !" 

" To man the bleeding Cross hath promised all: 
The bleeding Cross hath sworn eternal grace : 
Who gave his life, what gift will he deny?" 

The things of which we have spoken are no poetic fictions. 
They are the solemn verities of God — the revelations of Hea- 
ven to earth. We are all interested in them — unspeakably 
interested as rational and redeemed immortals. But what 



THE SYMBOLIC EVANGEL. 141 

avails this ^^ glorious gospel of the blessed Grod," with all its 
gracious proposals and gratuitous proffers, without an appro- 
priating faith and a practical improvement ? that we may 
learn to appreciate our privileges, and trust in the sacred 
blood which hath ^' consecrated for us a new and living way'^ 
to the mercy-seat, and aspire to the perfect and everlasting 
worship of the Father " within the vail V 



142 HEADLANDS OF FAITH 



IX.— THE EMPTY SEPULCHKE. 

No event in the history of our redemption is more import- 
ant than the resurrection of the Redeemer. His incarnation 
was important ; for if he had not been incarnate, he could not 
have been our kinsman ; and if he had not been our kins- 
man, he could not have been our substitute; and if he 
had not been our substitute, his sufferings could not have 
availed for our ransom. His crucifixion was important ; for 
if he had not been crucified, the Scriptures could not have 
been fulfilled, the violated law could not have been honored, 
the Divine government could not have been vindicated, the 
holiness and justice of God could not have been demonstrated, 
and the guilt of the human race could not have been expiated. 
But equally important was his resurrection ; for without this 
his incarnation and crucifixion could have been no benefit to 
the world : we should have wanted proof of his Divinity, of 
his power to redeem us, of the acceptance of his sacrifice for 
us on the part of the Father : we should have had no high- 
priest within the vail, and no assurance of awaking from the 
long sleep of the sepulchre. If Christ is not risen, our preach- 
ing is vain, and your faith is vain, and we are found false wit- 
nesses before Grod, and they that are fallen asleep in Christ 
are perished. " But now is Christ risen from the dead, and 
become the first fruits of them that slept. ^'* We shall endea- 

* 1 Cor. XV. 22. 



THEE MP TY SEPULCHRE. 143 

vor to prove the fact, and show its vital relation to the hopes 
of the Church. 

I. The fact. 

That Christ died is beyond a question ; and the Jews, the 
most inveterate enemies of his religion, never denied it. The 
soldiers, when they came to break his legs, were so well satis- 
fied of it, that they declined executing their purpose ; but to 
make it perfectly sure, one of them thrust a spear into his 
side, and blood and water issued from the wound. The 
water mingling with the blood, proves the spear to have pene- 
trated the pericardium — the membrane which surrounds the 
heart; and if the victim had not been dead before, this must 
have caused immediate death. The soldiers and spectators 
affirmed these facts, and John declares that he beheld them 
with his own eyes. 

It is equally clear that our Lord was buried. Joseph of 
Arimathea, by permission of Pilate, took the body from the 
cross, and laid it in his own new tomb, which was hewn out 
of a rock. To make it secure, a great stone was rolled to the 
mouth of the sepulchre, and it was sealed with the Roman 
signet, which it was death to break ; and sixty soldiers were 
stationed there to keep watch, lest his disciples should steal 
away the body, and affirm their Master's resurrection from the 
dead. But notwithstanding all these precautionary measures, 
on the morning of the third day the body was missing from 
the sepulchre. How is this fact to be accounted for? If 
Christ did not arise from the dead, his body must have been 
taken away either by his friends or his foes. That it was re- 
moved by his friends is very improbable : they had no use for 
it, and having it in their possession would have ruined their 
, cause. But if it was removed by his enemies, why did they 
not avow the fact when the apostles proclaimed his resurrec- 
tion ? Why did they not produce the corpse, and expose the 



144 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

imposition ? Why did they not contradict Peter on the day 
of Pentecost, when he charged them with killing ^^ the Prince 
of life/' and boldly affirmed his resurrection from the dead ? 
There is no alternative : he ^' rose again the third day, accord- 
ing to the Scriptures." There are four distinct sources of evi- 
dence — tlie testimony of the soldiers , of the angels, of the dis- 
ciples, and of the Holy Ghost — by which the fact may be 
fully established. 

The testimony of the soldiers. These were the first to 
proclaim the fact. They fled in consternation, and reported 
to the authorities of Jerusalem the earthquake at the sepul- 
chre, the angelic apparition, and the resurrection of their 
charge. Their manifest terror and dismay, and the perfect 
identity of their testimony, forced the conviction of their 
hearers. They felt themselves under the necessity of in- 
venting a barefaced falsehood, and procuring its publication 
by the soldiers, to discredit their own original testimony, lest 
the fact which they could not question themselves should gain 
currency among the people. So the chief priests and elders 
bribed them to say, '^ His discipks came by night, and stole 
him away while we slept." A most improbable story ! Is it 
likely that a few unarmed men — men so timid that they fled 
when their Master was apprehended — would venture through 
a band of Roman soldiers, at the imminent peril of their 
lives, to steal a corpse ? If, from fear, they forsook the living 
Jesus, would they have the temerity to encounter the legionary 
guard, and break the proconsular seal of Rome, in order to 
possess themselves of his body ? 

But it is said the soldiers were asleep. This is very im- 
probable ; for it was death to a Roman soldier to be found 
asleep upon his post; and if some of them chanced to fall 
asleep, it is incredible that they should all do so at the same 
time. But they were asleep, or they were not. If they were, 
why were they not punished for their delinquency? and if 



THE EiNIPTY SEPULCHRE. 145 

they were not, why did they suffer the body to be removed ? 
If they were, how did they know what happened during the 
time ? and if they were not, what credence is to be given to 
their testimony when they say they were ? If they were, 
they affirm that of which they have no evidence ; and if they 
were not, they assert what they knew to be false ; so that, in 
either case, they are utterly unworthy of credit. 

In short, if the body of Jesus was stolen from the tomb, 
why was not a reward offered for its recovery ? Why was no 
effort made to ascertain the fact ? Why were not the disciples 
apprehended ? Why were they suffered to preach the resur- 
rection ? Why were they never refuted or contradicted ? 
The story was clearly a sheer fabrication — a desperate measure 
of the Jews to conceal the too evident fact of their victim's 
resurrection. In spite of the bribery and perjury of the 
soldiers, their original testimony remains in all its force. In 
that, they could have had no motive to deceive ; and such 
was the penalty of delinquency in a Roman soldier, and such 
the rigorous execution of military law, that nothing but the 
fact could have forced them to publish that Jesus was risen. 

The testimony of the angels. This is recorded by all the 
four evangelists.* At first view there seems some discrepancy 
between their several accounts. Matthew and Mark speak 
of one angel : Luke and John of two. Matthew and Luke 
say the appearance was within the sepulchre : Mark and John, 
that it was without. How are these different statements to 
be harmonized ? 

The difficulty is only apparent. Mary Magdalene, and 
Mary the mother of James, with Joanna, Salome, and other 
women, came early in the morning to anoint the body of 
Jesus. When they found not the body, Mary ran to tell 
Peter and John. While she was gone, the other women, 

* Matt, xxviii. Mark xvi. Luke xxiv. John xx. 

7 



146 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

remaining at the sepulchre, saw the angel who addressed 
them as related by Matthew and Mark : " He is not here : 
he is risen, as he said.'^ 

But Matthew represents the angel as sitting upon the stone 
without the sepulchre, and Mark declares that he sat upon 
the right side within. True ; but Matthew does not say he 
sat upon the stone when he spoke to the women ; and Mark 
mentions his rolling away the stone, and sitting upon it, as 
having occurred before their arrival. The fact seems to be, 
that having rolled away the stone, and sat upon it for a time, 
he then entered the sepulchre, where he sat when the women 
came. 

To proceed : As soon as Peter and John received Mary's 
report, they arose and ran to the sepulchre, and found the 
facts as represented to them. After their departure, Mary 
comes again to the sepulchre, and sees the two angels, as 
related by Luke and John. The other women had already 
departed, and did not witness the glorious apparition. So 
there were three visits early that morning to the tomb of 
Jesus — the first by several women, the second by Peter and 
John, and the third by Mary alone. Peter and John saw 
Jesus, but saw no angels. Mary saw two angels, and the 
other women saw but one. Thus the several accounts are 
harmonized. The angelic manifestations were made to dif- 
ferent persons at different times. 

This apparent discrepancy, so far from invalidating the 
testimony of the evangelists, only confirms the truth of the 
record. If all the four had related the same facts in the 
same manner, infidels would have set up the cry of collusion 
and forgery. But the slight variations in the narrative — one 
narrator stating one fact and another another — precludes the 
possibility of such a charge with the least show of justice, 
while the main facts — every thing that is essential in the 
history — are explicitly stated by all. From the whole, it is 



THE EMPTY SEPULCHRE. 147 

evident that several angels bore distinct testimony to our 
Lord's resurrection. 

The testimony of the disciples. Scores and hundreds 
declared the fact, and many of them died for the declaration. 
They could not have been deceived themselves, nor is there 
any reason to suppose that they desired to deceive the world. 
They had every opportunity and advantage for ascertaining 
the truth in the case. Most of them were familiar with 
Jesus before his crucifixion ; and many of them beheld him 
upon the tree, and followed him to the tomb. They declare 
that after his burial they saw him alive, at different times, in 
different places, by day as well as by night, for the space of 
forty days — that they walked and talked with him, ate and 
drank with him, beheld his wounds, touched his person, and 
witnessed his ascension to heaven. He appeared four times 
on the very day of his resurrection : first to Mary at the 
sepulchre, then to Peter and John as they returned from the 
sepulchre, next to Cleopas and his companion on their way to 
Emmaus, and finally to all the apostles, except Thomas, as 
they sat at meat. Eight days after this, he showed himself 
to the whole company again, Thomas being present; and 
subsequently at the Sea of Tiberias, and on a mountain in 
Galilee. Paul says that he was seen also of James, and of 
above five hundred brethren at once. All this was before 
his ascension. Afterward he was seen of Stephen, Saul of 
Tarsus, and John in the Isle of Patmos. 

Such were the facilities of the disciples for ascertaining the 
truth. They were not credulous men. They were '^slow of 
heart to believe. ^^ When the women told them of the resur- 
rection, " their words seemed unto them as idle tales, and 
they believed them not.'^ When Christ afterward appeared 
to them, "they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed 
that they had seen a spirit.'' When one of them reported to 
Thomas his appearance to the rest, he declared that he would 



148 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

not believe till he should put his fingers into the prints of the 
nails, and thrust his hand into the wounded side — would not 
believe till he should touch the fact — till he should feel the 
resurrection. Certainly these were not men to be imposed 
upon; and they would have continued to reject the report, 
had it not been confirmed by ocular and tangible demonstra- 
tion. They were not deceived themselves. 

Is it likely that they sought to deceive others ? There was 
no temptation. The fraud could gain them nothing but tor- 
ture, infamy, and martyrdom. What then could induce them 
to declare the resurrection, if it were not true ? Why did 
they go about and preach it, at the hazard of all that was 
dear to them on earth ? Why did they maintain it in exile, 
in prison, at the stake, and on the cross? What but a 
thorough conviction of the glorious fact which they affirmed 
could have converted these timid and heart-broken men, iu a 
few days, into moral heroes and confessors, fearless alike of 
confiscation, imprisonment, torture, and death ? 

If they desired to palm a falsehood upon mankind, why did 
they not wait a little, or repair to some other country with the 
story ? W^hy did they commence preaching the resurrection 
in the very city of the crucifixion, while Calvary was yet crim- 
son with the victim's blood ? If it was false, they knew that 
the Jews had abundant means of refuting the falsehood, and 
that their malice would scruple at no plausible measures for 
its exposure. Yet they boldly affirmed that the Crucified was 
alive again — that they had seen him, conversed with him, and 
handled his person. Why were not their declarations denied 
and disproved ? Why did no writer in the apostolic age call 
the matter in question ? Why do Jewish Rabbins and Pagan 
Annalists maintain a studied silence on the subject ? It is 
preached everywhere. It is proclaimed in Athens and Cor- 
inth. It is reported to the Roman senate. It is asserted 
before a thousand tribunals. It is notorious throuo[;hout the 



THE EMPTY SEPULCHRE. 149 

civilized world. It becomes a recorded fact in history. Why 
is no voice lifted to rebuke the lie ? The evidence was too 
overwhelming that it was no lie; and the enemies of the 
gospel knew that any attempt at its refutation would only 
confirm the fact. 

The testimony of the Holy Spirit. We find this in the 
success of Christianity^ and the miracles which attended its 
primitive promulgation. If the asserted resurrection was 
unreal, how are we to account for the effects of its publica- 
tion ? Its publishers were a few illiterate fishermen, without 
money, influence, or reputation. Their story was offensive 
alike to Jews and Gentiles. Their cause was extremely un- 
popular. They were '^ everywhere spoken against." They 
were everywhere hated and persecuted. Priests and magis- 
trates did their utmost to silence them. Dungeons and gibbets 
menaced them on every side. Yet, under all these disadvan- 
tages, their testimony was soon received by myriads, many of 
whom lived in Jerusalem, and had witnessed the crucifixion. 

On the day of Pentecost, Peter charged the Jews boldly 
with having slain their Messiah, and then fearlessly attested 
his resurrection from the dead. Was it false ? Why, then, 
were the hearers '^ pricked in the heart ?'^ Why did they 
quail under the accusation of an impostor ? Why did three 
thousand of them believe a lie — a lie which any one of them 
could easily disprove ? and why did they submit to Christian 
baptism in profession of that belief ? 

Verily, if the apostles were deceivers, they were the most 
adroit and successful deceivers the world ever saw. Wherever 
they came, multitudes received their testimony, and embraced 
their faith, and heathen oracles went dumb, and idols fell 
from their pedestals, and altars were demolished, and temples 
were closed ) and the preaching of a risen Jesus triumphed 
over the philosophy of Athens and the eloquence of Rome ; 
and the world looked on in wonder, to see the impotency of 



150 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

human power, and the worthlessness of human policy, to cope 
with the Nazarenes. How will you explain their success, if 
their preaching was a mere fancy or a base fabrication ? The 
effect was evidently supernatural. Did the God of truth 
sanction a lie ? 

True, Mohammed, though a great impostor, won many con- 
verts, and spread his religion with wonderful rapidity. But 
it was effected by fire and sword. The apostles, on the con- 
trary, had no power but that of truth, no weapons but those 
of the Spirit. They were a feeble and suffering band, feared by 
none, despised by all. Yet they soon turned the world upside 
down, and planted the cross on the throne of the Caesars. It 
was Heaven that aided their efforts ; and seconded their 
preaching by the effusion of his grace ; and attested the great 
fact which they published by " signs, and wonders, and 
divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost,^^ which neither 
the pride nor the prejudice of their hearers was able to resist. 

Yet deists tell us it was enthusiasm, fanaticism, and delu- 
sion. If so, it is an instance without a counterpart or a 
parallel in the history of the world. When and where do 
you find so many persons, all at once, deceived by their own 
fancies, in a plain matter of fact, and agreeing by thousands 
in the same single testimony ? And if it were possible that 
they should be so deceived themselves, is it likely that they 
would be able to spread the delusion, with such astonishing 
facility, among myriads of men, when every thing was against 
them? The supposition is utterly absurd, and shows the 
desperate folly of those who deny the resurrection of our 
Lord. God himself has testified ; and every miracle wrought 
by the apostles, and every conversion to Christianity from the 
Pentecost to the present day, is a fresh attestation by the Holy 
Ghost to the statement of St. Paul : — ^^Now is Christ risen 
from the dead.'^ So much for the fact : it remains that we 
notice — 



THE EMPTY SEPULCHRE. 151 

II. Its RELATION TO OUR HOPES. 

He is " become the first fruits of them that slept/^ The 
expression is metaphorical — an allusion to the offering of first 
fruits under the Levitical law. The offering of first fruits 
insured and sanctified the harvest. So the resurrection of 
the Saviour demonstrates and exemplifies the resurrection of 
the saints. 

But were not several others raised before Christ ? How, 
then, can he be called " the first fruits of them that slept V* 
We answer : — 

First : — They were raised by the power of Christ. Christ 
was raised by his own power. He had " power to lay down 
his life, and power to take it again.^^ 

Secondly : — They were raised to die again. Christ, being 
raised, '^ dieth no more — death hath no more dominion over 
him.'^ ^'I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I 
am alive for evermore.'^ 

Thirdly : — They were raised by virtue of Christ's approach- 
ing resurrection. He procured their resurrection, as well as 
ours ; and it was in anticipation of his glorious conquest on 
the morning of the third day after his crucifixion, that the 
widow's son upon his bier, the ruler's daughter upon her bed, 
and the brother of Martha and Mary from the grave, awoke 
to second life. 

Fourthly : — They were raised in attestation of our Lord's 
Divinity. It was to prove his power over death, that men 
might trust in him as " the resurrection and the life." All 
the resurrections which he efi"ected before his own were 
miraculous demonstrations of his Godhead. But the most 
stupendous miracle — the miracle of miracles — was the resur- 
rection of himself. This proclaimed him " the Son of Grod 
with power," and laid a broad and firm foundation for the 
confidence and the hope of his followers. His resurrection 



152 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

assures us of our own. He is ^^ become the first fruits of 
them that slept.'' But how ? in what sense ? 

First : — His resurrection proves that he has procured ours. 
Had he remained in the tomb, we should have had reason to 
doubt the sufficiency of his sacrifice — the completeness of his 
satisfaction. He died to redeem our bodies, as well as our 
souls; and his resurrection shows that he has done so — shows 
that he is accepted as our substitute — that his vicarious offer- 
ing of himself has purchased the deliverance of his people. 

Secondly : — His resurrection demonstrates his power to 
raise the dead. If he raised his own body, he is able to 
raise the bodies of his saints. He has conquered the king of 
terrors, and swallowed up death in victory. The resurrection 
is compared to a harvest. The growth of the grain is natural, 
and the revival of the dead is supernatural ; but Omnipotence 
is equally necessary in both cases ; and he who can make the 
seed germinate in the soil, can quicken the bodies of the just 
into immortal life from the tomb ', and but for our familiarity 
with the phenomenon, the gradual development and maturity 
of vegetation were quite as wonderful an exhibition of Al- 
mightiness, as the sudden bursting of the cemetery into im- 
perishable bloom and fruitage at our Saviour's second coming. 
He who saith concerning his people — " I will redeem them 
from death, I will ransom them from the power of the grave," 
has demonstrated his power to fulfil the promise ; for, by the 
inherent energy of his own Godhead, he revived when he was 
dead, and came forth immortal from the tomb. 

Thirdly : — His resurrection is the pledge and the pattern 
of the resurrection of his people. He rose in our nature, as 
our representative. He is the Head of the body, and all be- 
lievers in him are members ; and the rising Head must surely 
draw the members after him. Therefore we are justly said 
to be " risen with Christ," and ^^ begotten again unto a living 



THE EMPTY SEPULCHRE. 153 

hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." " For 
since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection 
from the dead ; for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall 
all be made alive ; but every man in his own order — Christ 
the first fruits, and afterward they that are Christ's at his 
coming.'' And as our representative, he is the model of our 
resurrection. He ^' shall change our vile body, that it may 
be fashioned like unto his glorious body." ^^If we be planted 
together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the 
likeness of his resurrection." In what respects ? 

First: — Christ's body was substantially the same after 
its resurrection as before. He had the same ^' flesh and 
bones," and he exhibited to his disciples the wounds in ''his 
hands and his feet." It was the same body, though glorious 
and immortal. So with the saints. Every one shall have the 
same body, not another. If another, it would be a creation, 
not a resurrection. The body that dies shall live again. The 
body that is buried shall be raised. 

Secondly : — Christ's body, though the same, was marvel- 
lously improved in its resurrection and ascension. It was 
refined, made spiritual, superior to physical laws, and no 
longer liable to infirmities, sickness, and death. Such shall 
be the resurrection body of the believer. '' It is sown in cor- 
ruption, raised in incorruption ) sown in dishonor, raised in 
glory; sown in weakness, raised in power; sown a natural 
body, raised a spiritual body." No more infirmities, neces- 
sities, deformities, defects, or deaths. The law of mortality 
shall be repealed, and ''the children of the resurrection" 
shall be " equal to the angels." 

Thirdly: — Christ was "the first begotten from the dead" — 
" the first fruits of them that slept." So his saints shall be 
raised first in the day of his second advent. Nothing in 
connection with the last transactions of our world is more 
clearly revealed. Our Lord speaks of " the resurrection of 
7* 



154 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

the just" in contradistinction to the resurrection of the 
unjust. The apostles do the same. We are told that the 
saints are to judge the world, which they cannot do unless 
they are raised first. It is a remarkable fact, that in the 
fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 
where Paul treats so largely of the resurrection, it is only of 
the resurrection of the righteous. True, he says ^^ all shall 
be made alive 3" but then he states the order : ^^ Christ the 
first-fruits, afterward they that are Christ's at his coming; 
then Cometh the end, when he shall deliver up the kingdom 
to God, even the Father ;" and when, according to other scrip- 
tures, the wicked are to be raised for judgment. 

Finally: — Christ rose that he might be '^crowned with 
glory and honor;" and his people shall be raised that they 
may be glorified together with him. Joseph came forth from 
prison to be the prime minister of Egypt, and next in honor 
to the king; but the saints shall ascend from their graves to 
be ^^joint-heirs with Jesus Christ," in the enjoyment of an 
eternal kingdom. "When Christ, who is our life, shall 
appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory." " To 
him that overcometh " — such is his promise — " will I grant 
to sit with me in my throne." 0, what an enthronement — 
what a coronation — of those whom the ungodly world have 
persecuted, and despised, and trampled ! What a triumph 
over all our enemies ! What a reward for all the efi*orts of a 
holy life ! What an indemnification for a few years of sick- 
ness and sorrow ! What an amazing consummation of Christ's 
redeeming love ! 

"How can it be, thou Heavenly King! 
That thou shouldst us to glory bring? 
Make slaves the partners of thy throne, 
Decked with a never-fading crown!" 

Such is the vital relation which our Lord's resurrection 



THE EMPTY SEPULCHRE. 155 

sustains to the most precious hopes of his people. And now 
the way "through the valley of the shadow of death'' is 
illuminated by the glorious footsteps of the Son of God ; and 
beyond the darkness, amid the splendors of immortality — 
himself the radiating fountain — we see him holding forth 
crowns of life to his followers. Let us follow " the Captain 
of our salvation/' unshrinking, to the final conflict ! He has 
conquered the last enemy in his own dominions j and faith in 
him shall make us '' more than conquerors." 

But if you would share in the power and blessedness of 
his resurrection, you must acquire an interest in the merit 
of his death. "Without this, what is your hope? You shall 
awake from the sleep of the sepulchre ; but it shall be " to 
shame and everlasting contempt." If you would rise to a 
blessed immortality, you must first rise to a life of holiness. 
0, seek an interest for yourselves in the living Kedeemer ! 
Believe in him, obey him, and love him ! Then shall you 
spring with joy from your graves to hail his final advent ! 
Then shall you shine among his saints " as the brightness of 
the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever V 



1 



156 HEADLANDS OP FAITH 



X.— THE RETURN TO HEAVEN. 

It is a question of some importance, Why did our Lord 
remain on earth forty days after his resurrection ? Why did 
he not ascend immediately to his Father ? The answer is not 
diflScult. He remained awhile for the instruction and conso- 
lation of his disciples; for the confirmation of their faith, 
and the encouragement of their hope. He would not return 
to heaven till he had given them all necessary information 
concerning his kingdom, all necessary assurance respecting 
their salvation; till he had furnished them with such a 
demonstration of his Divinity as would eflPectually preclude 
all future doubt, and lay a broad and firm foundation for their 
confidence ; such an exhibition of his tender regard as would 
serve to support them in his absence, and render them patient 
in tribulation, and joyful in hope of his second advent. 

One great object of his mission was to abolish death, and 
bring life and immortality to light. How was this to be 
achieved? He must demonstrate his power over the last 
enemy. He must prove himself able to destroy him that had 
the power of death, that is the devil. But by what means is 
this to be efi'ected ? By his own revival from the dead. No 
other proof will answer : no other pledge can be given of the 
resurrection of his people. But how are his people to be as- 
sured of his revival ? They must see him after his resurrec- 
tion. They must see their slain and buried Master again ex- 
ercising the functions of a living man. But would the proof 



THE RETURN TO HEAVEN. 157 

of his resurrection have been complete, if he had ascended to 
heaven immediately on his egress from the grave ? Probably 
the disciples themselves would have doubted the fact, and the 
Jews would have believed indeed that his body had been 
stolen away. He must remain awhile on earth. A brief 
visit or two to his friends is not enough. They must see him 
again and again. They must eat, drink, and converse with 
him. They must have sensible evidence of the identity of his 
person and the reality of his resurrection. Therefore he ma- 
nifests himself to them frequently, in different places, with 
various circumstances, solitary and assembled ', and by repeated 
interviews — of which no less than ten are recorded — they are 
convinced that he is indeed the Resurrection and the Life, 
the conqueror of death and hell; so thoroughly convinced, 
and so powerfully impressed with the truth, that they are qua- 
lified for preaching it to the world, with an assurance that 
carries conviction to their hearers, and a confidence which the 
menace of torture and of martyrdom cannot dismay. 

The apostles needed instruction. They were ignorant of 
many things concerning that kingdom which their Master 
came from heaven to establish. They could not understand 
its spiritual and heavenly character. They could not under- 
stand a sovereignty whose throne was a cross, whose sceptre a 
reed, whose diadem a wreath of thorns. The Jewish vail was 
still upon their hearts. The real nature of atonement, the 
ground of a sinner's justification, the agency of the Holy 
Spirit in the renovation of the human soul, were matters too 
mysterious for their feeble grasp of faith. But during these 
forty days, their Master visited them often, and discoursed 
with them familiarly on these and kindred topics. In these 
discourses, what floods of light were poured over the prophetic 
Scriptures ! What sublime revelations were given ! what 
illustrations of the shadowy past ! what glorious visions of 
the future ! What wonderful discoveries of truth were made ! 



158 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

what errors and misapprehensions removed ! what moun- 
tains of prejudice swept away ! what new strength of assur- 
ance imparted ! what new ardors of love enkindled ! what 
new energy and zeal infused ! How rich was every hour in 
hopes revived, thoughts spiritualized, holy desires awakened, 
and lofty resolutions formed ! And thus what a change was 
wrought in these timid, doubting, and despondent souls ! 
They had wept over their ruined expectations. They had 
seen their Lord crucified, and buried their dearest hopes in 
his tomb. But now their grief and despair have given way 
to the glad certainty that he is alive again, and alive for ever- 
more. He has triumphed over death. The conqueror could 
not bind his Captive. ^^ Free among the dead,^' he arose and 
came forth from the sepulchre, and with him the hopes of his 
people. It is the fulfilment of prophecy. It is the demon- 
stration of his Divinity. It is the pledge of their own immor- 
tality. It is the beginning of the everlasting kingdom. They 
perceive it now, and they are satisfied. Their Master is with 
them once more — with them in " the power of an endless life.'' 
They see his face ; they hear his voice ; they listen to his 
teaching; they rejoice in his gracious benediction. But the 
privilege is only for a season. Scarcely are they convinced of 
the reality of all they have witnessed during the forty days 
that have passed so rapidly, like a blessed dream, ere they are 
summoned to witness his departure. 

They had not witnessed his resurrection. It was not neces- 
sary : their subsequent intercourse with him would afford 
them sufficient evidence of the fact. With regard to the as- 
cension, the case was different. He was about to return to 
heaven ; and except in a few favored instances — as that of 
Stephen in the hour of his martyrdom, of Paul in the rapture 
of Paradise, and that of John in the vision of Patmos — they 
would see him no more till his second coming. As they could 
not see him after his ascension, they must see him in the act 



THE RETURN TO HEAVEN. 159 

of ascending. They must have ocular demonstration of the 
fact, to satisfy their own minds, and qualify them for bearing 
testimony to it before the world. 

But why was this privilege permitted only to the disciples ? 
Why was not this greatest evidence of his Messiahship and God- 
head granted to the whole Jewish people ? They had rendered 
themselves unworthy. They had rejected the evidence of 
former miracles : they would have rejected the evidence of this. 
They were not convinced by his resurrection : they would not 
have been convinced by his ascension. The pride and per- 
verseness which had withstood the testimony of frowning 
skies, and rending rocks, and rising saints, and descending 
angels, if permitted to witness this stupendous wonder, would 
either have questioned its reality, or have resisted its influence. 
Or, if proof enough had not already been furnished, other evi- 
dence, of a very different character, and perhaps better adapt- 
ed to produce conviction, was hereafter to be added, in the 
apostolic gifts and miracles, the spiritual manifestations of the 
Pentecost, and the general effusion of the Holy Ghost. 

The public ministry of Jesus ended at his crucifixion. His 
forty days' continuance on earth was chiefly for the sake of his 
disciples. They were to be heralds of his grace among the 
nations, exposed to peril in a thousand forms, and subject to 
tribulation from a thousand causes. They needed the fullest 
proof of his Godhead ; and all the instruction, consolation, 
and encouragement, which his frequent visits and affectionate 
converse could afford them. Therefore he never showed him- 
self openly to the world j and the occasion selected for a ma- 
nifestation to the members of his ^' little flock,' ^ was either 
when they were alone at the sepulchre, or when they walked 
solitary and sad by the way, or when they were assembled in 
secret for fear of the Jews. And now he is about to return 
to his Father and their Father, to his God and their God. 
He knows the place where they are accustomed to hold their 



160 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

nightly festivals of prayer and praise. He appears unexpect- 
edly in their midst, greets them with that well-known saluta- 
tion ; and after '^ speaking of the things pertaining to the 
kingdom of God/' leads them out of the city, up the Mount 
of Olives, as near to heaven as they can go, that they may 
witness his last act, and receive his last benediction, and gaze 
after him as he goes back to his heavenly throne. The event 
is thus recorded in the evangelical narration : — ^^And he 
led them out as far as to Bethany; and he lifted up his hands 
and blessed them ; and it came to pass, while he blessed them, 
he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven ; and 
they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great 
joy, and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing 
God. Amen.''* Let us attend to the several circumstances 
in this sublime description : — 

I. The point of departure. 

" He led them out as far as to Bethany." There was a 
town of Bethany, and a district of Bethany. The town of 
Bethany was beyond the Mount of Olives, two miles from 
Jerusalem. The border of the district of Bethany, which in- 
cluded the town, was half-way between it and Jerusalem, on 
the top of the Mount of Olives. This is precisely the dis- 
tance — "a, Sabbath day's journey" — which the disciples are 
said to have returned to the city from the scene of the ascen- 
sion; and this is, by common consent, the place whence our 
Lord took his departure. But it is not improbable that he 
passed over to the town, and visited the little family of 
orphans, and then returned to the top of the mountain, before 
he ascended. Can the risen Jesus forget, at such a time as 
this, the three that he has honored with his friendship, and 
from whom he has received such marked attention ? There 

* Luke xxiv. 50-53. 



THE RETURN TO HEAVEN. 161 

is the Martha who has ministered so lovingly to his needs, the 
Mary who has sat so meekly at his feet, the Lazarus whom he 
has reclaimed from corruption and the worms. Their names 
are engraven on his heart. He must see them again before 
he leaves the world. He must give them a last proof of his 
unfailing love. How often has he resorted to their cottage for 
refreshment and repose after the toils and fatigues of the 
day ! How often has he sought in that sweet seclusion an 
asylum from the turmoil of the city, and found in the converse 
of those congenial souls a solace to his troubled heart ! And 
now he has but one more hour on earth, and how shall it be 
better improved than by a visit to Bethany ? And now he 
has but one more blessing to pronounce, and who more worthy 
to share it than the three pious orphans ? And now ho is to 
be seen no more till his second advent, and how can he go 
away without calling these beloved ones to witness his de- 
parture ? 

Christ is ^^a brother born for adversity'^ — '^a friend that 
sticketh closer than a brother.'^ Uniting the sympathy of a 
man with the compassion of a God, he is deeply ^^ touched 
with a feeling of our infirmities." When did he ever neglect 
the children of affliction ? when withhold words of consolation 
from the bereft and broken-hearted ? But of all the sufferers 
in this unhappy world, none need the solacements of friend- 
ship more than the orphan. And was ever orphan favored 
like Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus? Happy family, to 
have entertained such a guest, to have found a place in such 
a heart 1 " Behold how he loved them V The mediatorial 
throne awaits its occupant, the Everlasting Father looks out 
for his long-absent Son, and myriads of exultant angels are 
ready to shout the Victor home ; but he cannot go till he has 
seen the dwellers at Bethany, and given them his parting 
benediction. Christian, such is his regard for thee ! Human 
language is too poor to express, human thou<2:ht too feeble to 



162 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

conceive, the overflowings of his friendship. Heaven hath no 
string sweet enough to tell its tenderness, nor loud enough to 
tell its strength. 

*' How low, how vain, our mortal airs, 
When Gabriel's nobler harp despairs !" 

^^ He led them out as far as to Bethany.'' Bethany signi- 
fies " House of Sorrow," and perhaps it was with reference 
to his unrivalled sufi'erings that our Saviour selected this as 
the place whence to take his departure. He was emphatically 
" a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." From the 
manger to the cross, his path was marked with tears. Pecu- 
liarly tempted of the devil ; incessantly pursued by the hunt- 
ers of blood ; in the hour of his extremity, betrayed by one 
disciple, denied by another, forsaken of all — never was sor- 
row like his sorrow. But of all his sufferings Calvary was 
the consummation. How often did he allude to the chilling 
scene in language of strange and indefinable foreboding ! See 
him yonder, at midnight, prostrate in prayer upon the dew- 
damp earth, 

"While agony weighs down his soul, 
And blood-drops from his temples roll !" 

Behold him led forth, lacerated and languishing, to the place 
of execution. He bears his own cross, till he faints beneath 
the burden. Look I they stretch him upon that fearful death- 
bed : they drive the nails through the shivering nerves : they 
rear him up between two thieves, a public spectacle of scorn 
and execration ; and there he hangs, convulsed, writhing in 
blood, and cries after his departing Father — " My Grod ! My 
God 1 Why hast thou forsaken me I" 

These were the sorrows of our Saviour, and from these he 
entered into his glory. Yea, the very mountain where he had 
often wept and prayed with his disciples — from whose slope 



THE RETURN TO HEAVEN. 163 

he had poured prophetic tears over the coming fate of Jeru- 
salem — at whose base he spent part of the last terrible night 
before his crucifixion, agonized in his crimson perspiration, 
and received the traitor's kiss — was the place selected for his 
departure, when he went back to his throne. So all his ser- 
vants must go to heaven from the '' House of Sorrow." In 
the world they shall have tribulation ; and it is enough that 
the disciple be as his Master. But 0, it is consoling to know 
that we are treading in the footsteps of Jesus, '^filling up 
what is behind of the sufferings of Christ !" It is consoling 
to know that these afflictions are brief as painful, that the suf- 
fering saint shall reign with his glorified Saviour, that the 
sorrows of earth shall sweeten the joys of heaven — every pain 
rewarded with an additional pleasure, every sigh remunerated 
with a loftier song, and every tear crystallized into a gem for 
the coronal ! 

II. The last benediction. 

^'And he lifted up his hands and blessed them.'^ How 
admirable the temper in which he left the world — a world 
that needed his mission so much, and requited the mercy so 
ill! Despised and rejected of men; calumniated, execrated, 
persecuted from the habitations of humanity ; he indulges no 
fiery strain of censure and malediction, but quits the scene 
of his suffering with a smile, and his last words are words of 
affectionate benediction. But this was in perfect accordance 
with his entire character, and the benevolent end of his incar- 
nation. He came to bless mankind, and never once did he 
forget the gracious errand. Grace was poured plentifully 
into his lips, and language of loving-kindness flowed ever from 
his tongue. How often did his blessing fall upon the head 
of infancy, like dew upon the flowers; and fill the bleeding 
heart of bereavement with ^^ the oil of gladness V Bead the 
opening of his longest recorded sermon.* Did ever discourse 
* Matthew V. 1-12. 



164 HEADLANDS OF TAITH. 

contain so sweet an introduction ? '^ He went up into a 
mountain; and when he was set, his disciples came unto him; 
and he opened his mouth and taught them ;" and his first 
word was " Blessed V Then followed benison upon benison — 
a benison for *Hhe poor in spirit/^ a benison for ^^them that 
mourn/^ a benison for " the meek/' a benison for " them that 
hunger and thirst after righteousness," a benison for " the 
merciful,^' a benison for " the pure in heart," a benison for 
" the peace-makers," a benison for " those who are persecuted 
for righteousness' sake" — as if the Divine Preacher had open- 
ed the store-house of Heaven's beatitudes, and poured all its 
treasured fulness at once upon their heads ! Happy disciples, 
to have listened to such a sermon ! It was Infinite Love un- 
bosoming itself to sinful men. It was Infinite Blessedness 
pouring itself over the manifold sorrows of humanity. 

** His words had such a melting flow, 
And spoke the truth so sweetly well : 
They dropped like heaven's serenest snow, 
And all was brightness where they fell." 

" He lifted up his hands and blessed them." What could 
have been more appropriate ? From a scene of deepest hu- 
miliation, he was about to be exalted " far above all heavens." 
It was the heir coming into possession of his inheritance : it 
was the exiled prince returning to his kingdom ; and on such 
an occasion of gladness, what less could he do than bless the 
loved ones he was leaving ? He blessed them not as Isaac 
blessed Esau and Jacob, or as Jacob blessed the sons of Jo- 
seph — by praying for a blessing upon them. He blessed 
them "as one having authority" — as one whose prerogative 
it is to bless — as he in whom resides the fountain of all bless- 
ing — by commanding a blessing upon them. It was the 
father blessing his family, on the eve of a long separation. It 
was the master, just ready to take his departure into a far 



THE RETURN TO HEAVEN. 165 

country, blessing the servants whom he was leaving in charge 
of his household and his goods. It was the '^ Grood Shepherd'' 
blessing his ''little flock'' — the "King of Zion" blessing his 
happy subjects — the Saviour of men blessing his ransomed 
people — the " Great High Priest" blessing his " chosen gene- 
ration" — God himself blessing his beloved children. The 
apostles were the representatives of the Christian Church ; so 
that in blessing them he blessed the whole spiritual Israel. 
He made that little company the depositaries of his blessing 
to the world. He blessed them, that they might become a 
blessing to others. And his blessing was " not in word only, 
but also in deed and in truth." He not merely pronounced 
them blessed, but actually made them blessed. And the 
blessing which he then imparted still rests upon the children 
of the Covenant, and every believer participates in its benefits, 
and it shall abide with the faithful in all its original freshness 
for ever. 

" He lifted up his hands and blessed them." Beautiful 
expression of his unchanging love ! '' I leave you," he seems 
to say, " but not in anger. Let not your hearts be troubled. 
Mine is a love which many waters cannot quench, neither can 
the floods drown. True, ye could not watch with me in the 
hour of my agony; and when I was taken by the soldiers, ye 
all forsook me and fled. But I know your infirmities : I for- 
give your ingratitude. Peter, I have pardoned thy profane 
denial of me. Thomas, I have pardoned thy sinful unbelief 
of my resurrection. Ye shall still be the objects of my ten- 
derest aff"ection. I go to my Father; but I will not forget 
you : I will pray for you : I will send you the Comforter. Be 
of good cheer. Henceforth ye see me not; but I am ever 
with you : I will protect your persons : I will prosper your 
work. Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Ye 
cannot follow me now ; but ye shall follow me hereafter. Be 
patient : be happy. If ye suffer with me, ye shall reign with 



166 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

me. Fare-ye-well I" — How would sucli words have gladdened 
tlie sorrowful disciples ! And did not the ascending Saviour 
mean all this, and more, when ''he lifted up his hands and 
blessed them ?'^ They well understood the act. To them it 
was no unmeaning ceremony. The language, the gesture, the 
aspect, were all significant of benediction, and spoke directly 
to the heart. x\nd could they ever forget the endearing man- 
ner in which he took his leave ? Could Peter ever deny him 
again, or Thomas doubt the fulfilment of his word ? Do you 
wonder that John loved him so ineffably, and spoke in such 
raptures of his second coming? What a sanctifying influence 
had the recollection upon their lives ! How did it cheer them 
on in their subsequent toils and tribulations ! 0, this is what 
kindled their souls with seraphic fervors, and hardened their 
flesh to adamant. Assured of their Master's blessing, they 
went forth to preach the gospel, superior to fear, and superior 
to pain; unaided and unarmed, in sight of dungeons and 
flames, contending successfully with the power and the policy 
of the world ; and their divine ambition and uncompromising 
zeal confounded the sophist and convinced the skeptic ; and 
profligate Gentile and bigoted Jew became the delighted cap- 
tives of their heavenly eloquence. 

III. The act op ascension. 

"And it came to pass, as he blessed them, he was parted 
from them, and carried up into heaven. '' Earth is not the 
scene of permanent associations. Lasting friendships there 
may be — a union of hearts that triumphs over death ; but 
however intimate or advantageous the connection, Elisha must 
lose his Elijah, and David sighs upon his harp for Jonathan; 
and often it happens that those we love most leave us 
first, and our spiritual guides and helps are taken away when 
we are in greatest need of their counsels and prayers. Gladly 
would the disciples have detained their Lord ; but they had 



THE RETURN TO HEAVEN. 167 

learned the expediency of Ms departure. He had finished his 
labor of love among men, and the time was come for him to 
return to the Father. His bodily presence was not to be ex- 
pected always on earth, and those who had known him after 
the flesh must now henceforth know him thus no more. And 
when they saw him about to quit the world, how gladly would 
they have accompanied him ; but Christ had work for them 
below, and they must remain to do it. The germ of a minis- 
try which was to be " the light of the world," without whose 
Divine teachings a moral darkness more dreadful than the 
night of Egypt would have enveloped our unhappy race; the 
nucleus of a Church which was to be '^ the salt of the earth,'' 
without whose conservative influence a moral pestilence more 
fatal than the plague of Egypt's first-born would have ren- 
dered this globe the very charnel-house of the universe : he 
desired not their immediate removal to the heavenly mansions, 
and prayed only that they might be kept from the evil they 
were left to cure. And the suff'erings of this earthly scene 
were needful for a season, to try their strength and their for- 
titude; and their light and transitory afflictions were the 
means of augmenting their eternal weight of glory ; and hav- 
ing time to run with patience the race set before them, they 
might secure for themselves a more splendid portion with the 
saints in light. 

^' He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.'' 
Here was no mistake. The same writer tells us in another 
place that " it came to pass while they beheld." Here he 
describes the circumstantial order of the event : — ^^ He was 
parted from them" — literally, ^^he stood aside" — that no in- 
terruption might occur, and that all might witness the fact ; 
and then he was ^^ carried up," moving directly toward heaven, 
in full view of the whole party, till " a cloud received him out 
of their sight." Was it possible that they should be deceived? 
Was all this the work of imagination, or a mere optical illu- 



168 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

sion ? What company of men^ amounting perhaps to several 
hundred, could be so imposed upon, by any artifice or trickery, 
as to believe that they saw another taken from their midst 
and carried off in a cloud to heaven ? And as for the sin- 
cerity and veracity of the witnesses, when we hear the whole 
party unitedly affirming and reaffirming, and that without any 
possible motive to deceive, but in direct opposition to their 
worldly interests, and in the face of danger and of death, that 
they beheld Jesus thus ascend to heaven, how can we resist 
the conviction that they are honest in their statements, and 
not endeavoring to palm an imposition upon the world ? And 
the testimony is corroborated by the declarations of Stephen, 
Paul, and John, who afterward saw the ascended Saviour in 
his glory ; by the astonishing effusion of the Holy Grhost, ac- 
cording to his promise, at the Pentecost ; by the " signs, and 
wonders, and mighty deeds,^' wrought in his name by the 
apostles ; and by the marvellous triumphs of his gospel, and 
the stupendous achievements of his grace, for more than 
eighteen subsequent centuries. Thus the ascension of our 
blessed Lord is sufficiently attested, and rests upon as firm a 
basis as any other fact of the Evangelical Record. 

^'He was carried up into heaven/' He left the earth as 
Elijah, but with this important difference : — The prophet was 
translated by the power of G-od ; whereas Christ, being him- 
self God, ascended by the almightiness of his own volition. 
But some say he was carried up by angels. Unquestionably, 
there were angels in attendance, for we find two of them lin- 
gering to talk with the disciples. But what was their errand ? 
Come they to bear their King back to his throne ? 0, he is 
not now the infant of Bethlehem. He is " the Lord, strong 
and mighty;" the Lord of hosts is his name. He needeth no 
angelic aid, no horses and chariots of fire. If the angel could 
ascend in the smoke of Manoah's sacrifice, cannot " the Lord 
from heaven '' wrap the drapery of the clouds about him, and 



THE RETURN TO HEAVEN. 169 

return to his original abode without the interposition of any 
creature agency ? Wherefore, then, descended the celestial 
legions ? They came to honor their ascending Prince. They 
came to assure the disciples of their Master's return. They 
came to witness the mystery of the cross developed, and cele- 
brate the work of redemption finished. They had heralded 
his advent to earth, and now they came to accompany him 
back to his throne. They had attended him in the fierce con- 
flict with the powers of darkness, and now they came to par- 
ticipate in the coronation of the Victor. Lo ! the triumphal 
procession approaches the eternal city, shouting — ^' Lift up 
your heads, O ye gates ! and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting 
doors ! and the King of glory shall come in V And the ce- 
lestial porters answer : — " Who is the King of glory V And 
the response rolls back to the empyrean, like the sound of 
many waters : — " The Lord, mighty in battle ! he is the 
King of glory V And thus was fulfilled the royal Prophet's 
vision: — '^The chariots of God are twenty thousand — even 
thousands of angels ; the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in 
the holy place. Thou hast ascended on high : thou hast led 
captivity captive : thou hast received gifts for men ; yea, for 
the rebellious also, that the Lord Grod may dwell among 
them.'' 

" He was carried up into heaven.'' Christ is glorified for 
ever. He hath resumed the throne which for our sake he 
abdicated. The government is laid upon his shoulders. The 
keys of death and hell are committed to his hands. " Grod 
hath highly exalted him, and set him at his own right hand 
in heavenly places, far above all principality and power, 
dominion and might, and every name that is named," Com- 
pared with the glorious majesty of his kingdom, all human 
grandeur — the pomp and splendor of courts and empires — are 
less than nothing, and vanity. " His name shall endure for 
ever : his name shall be continued as long as the sun ; and 
8 



170 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

men shall be blessed in him : all nations shall call tim 
blessed/' His fame as Mediator, his trophies as Conqueror, 
are continually increasing. Accumulating voices are render- 
ing to him their homage, and accumulating hearts are accord- 
ing to him their praise. His reign shall survive all earthly 
sovereignty, and derive new majesty from the conflagration 
of the world and the decisions of the judgment ; and the new 
heavens and earth shall ring with ^' Blessing, and honor, and 
glory, and power, to him that sitteth upon the throne, and to 
the Lamb for ever and ever V 

" He was carried up into heaven." How precious is this 
fact to his people ! Had he not ascended, he could not have 
been our Advocate, he could not have sent us the Comforter, 
and we must have been cheerless and hopeless in the house 
of our pilgrimage. But he has gone up on high ; and he sits 
" a priest upon his throne. '' He lives to bless us, to pray for 
us, to protect our interests, to superintend all our affairs, to 
accomplish the great restitution, the final redemption, the 
destruction of death and the devil, the extirpation of evil from 
the universe. ^'All power is given unto him in heaven and 
in earth;'' and without a compeer, and without a rival, ''he 
must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet." 

" He was carried up into heaven." Thither let our thoughts 
and affections follow him. Forget not, my soul ! thy ab- 
sent Friend. Think what he hath done for thee, what he is 
now doing, and what he hath promised to do. He hath gone 
to prepare a place for thee, and will come again and receive 
thee to himself. When he shall appear, thou shalt be like 
him, for thou shalt see him as he is. Cherish this hope in 
the hour of sorrow : cling to it in the agony of death ; and 
lift up thy head and rejoice, for thy redemption draweth nigh ! 

IV. The HAPPY EFFECT UPON THE DISCIPLES. 

''They worshipped him." This was a declaration of per- 



THE RETURN TO HEAVEN. 171 

petual loyalty to their Prince and Saviour. It was not an 
act of mere civil respect — of mere deference and admiration 
— such as men usually pay to superior authority^ intellect, 
learning, or virtue, in their kind. Such worship is always 
performed in the presence of the person to whom it is offered; 
but the disciples worshipped their Master after he had risen 
out of sight. They knew that the cloud which concealed 
him from their view did not exclude them from his — that 
though ascended to heaven, he was still the King of Zion upon 
earth, and from his exalted seat would notice and approve their 
homage. They adored him as the Supreme Jehovah. They 
honored the Son even as they honored the Father. And this 
was in accordance with the Father's declared will, who hath 
commanded the angels to worship him, and required every 
knee to bow to his name, and every tongue to confess him 
Lord. 

They "returned to Jerusalem with great joy.'^ They 
returned to Jerusalem, where they were commanded to remain 
till they should " receive the promise of the Father,^' and be 
"endued with power from on high.'' They returned to 
Jerusalem to wait for the gift of the Spirit, that the most 
skeptical might witness their miraculous endowments, and be 
convinced of the Divinity of their Master and their mission. 
They returned to Jerusalem to commence their ministry on 
the very spot of the crucifixion, that the world might see 
they were " not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,'' and that 
the murderers of the Prince of life might have the first offer 
of pardon through his blood. They returned to Jerusalem ; 
for what was the malice of an enraged populace to them ? 
What were dungeons, and scourges, and crosses, and stones, 
and flames ? They had just seen their Lord ascend to heaven. 
They knew that he was alive, and glorified, and able to pro- 
tect them, and would be with them " to the end of the world." 
They had no cause for fear or dejection, and thev "returned 



172 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

to Jerusalem with great joy/' Here was a wonderful change. 
When their Master told them he was going away, "sorrow 
filled their hearts :" now he actually leaves them, and their 
sorrow is turned into joy. Whence the difference ? Their 
understandings were opened, to discern the mystery of his 
sufferings and his glory; and the promised Comforter descended 
upon them in his sanctifying influence, though the communi- 
cation of his miraculous gifts was delayed ten days longer. 
And 0, with what a rush of holy recollections came back the 
past upon them ! and with what a divine significance every 
remembered word and deed was now invested ! and what a 
sudden simplicity and transparency the hitherto mysterious 
and incomprehensible now assumed ! and what a radiance 
shone through the darkened heavens over the crucifixion ! and 
what a glory gathered around the Redeemer's sepulchre ! 
Thus the Comforter brought all things to their remembrance; 
and with the scene of the ascension ever vivid in their minds, 
and the recollection of a place to be prepared for them, and the 
anticipation of the Saviour's return, they rejoiced with joy 
unspeakable and full of glory — a joy which was proof against 
fire and flood, and which no man could take from them — a joy 
which accompanied them through life, the same in peace and 
in persecution — which lightened every burden and sweetened 
every sorrow, and rendered them indifferent to indignities, 
tranquil amidst terrors and tortures, and triumphant in the 
agony of death ! 

They "were continually in the temple, praising and blessing 
God." It has been conjectured that the disciples held their 
social meetings in a chamber of the temple, belonging to a 
Levite, who secretly favored their cause. The language, 
however, may mean simply that they were found regularly in 
the house of Grod at the house of worship, and participating 
as far as they could in the exercises. They knew that the 
sacrifices there offered were superseded by the one great obla- 



THE RETURN TO HEAVEN. 173 

tion ; but the prayers and the songs, for the most part, they 
could join with even a greater zest than other worshippers. 
When they thought of the Saviour's glorious exaltation, their 
souls overflowed with gladness : they sent up one united 
anthem unto Grod, and every heart was attuned to the har- 
mony. But 0, it was not the melody of sweet sounds, nor 
the concord of many voices, that gave attractiveness to the 
place and fascination to the service. It was the love they 
bore their ascended Master, and the holy delectation they 
took in his praise. It was the joy of ineffable gratitude and 
transcendent hope. Come and let us look in upon that happy 
company. There is the ever ardent Simon, repeating his 
former asseveration, " Lord, thou knowest that I love thee I'^ 
There is the seraphic John, looking up with the same calm 
and holy countenance as when he leaned on Jesus's bosom, 
and exclaiming, " We shall be like him — we shall see him as 
he is V There is he who was raised from the dead, kneeling 
between his two sisters, expressing by silent tears the love 
that language cannot utter. And who is that female, with 
her garment folded upon her face, weeping out her wordless 
gratitude ? That is the sinful Mary — the sinful Mary par- 
doned — who used to pour her floods at the Master's feet. 
She loveth much : she hath had much forgiven. 0, how 

sweet 

"The meltings of a broken heart!" 

Weep on, happy penitent ! those crystal drops are fairer in 
the sight of Grod than all the jewelry of heaven ! And thus, 
with a constant and joyous worship, they waited in the temple 
for the descent of the promised Comforter, as good old Simeon 
and Anna the prophetess waited for the coming of Christ; 
and every rising fear was suppressed, and every trembling 
hope was confirmed, and every incipient joy was increased; 
and so they acquired a preparation for the miraculous mani- 
festation of the Spirit ; and when he came, he found sanctified 
and glowing hearts ready to entertain him. 



174 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

And have not we the same reasons for "'praising and 
blessing God ?" " It is finished/^ Christ hath '^ trodden 
the winepress alone," and wrought out our redemption. 
Single-handed he hath wrestled with our 'Mast enemy" in 
his own dark dominion ; and hurled him from his throne of 
skulls, a etingless and vanquished foe. Having spoiled prin- 
cipalities and powers, he takes his triumphal march toward 
the metropolis of his empire, and our captivity is a captive in 
his train. The chariot hath passed over "the everlasting 
hills," and heaven is vocal with the joy of victory. And 
whose heart withholds the song ? 

"Awake, awake, my tuneful powers!" 

'' God hath gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound 
of a trumpet ! Sing praises unto God, sing praises ! Sing 
praises unto our King, sing praises I" Who can pour out his 
soul to the Saviour in such strains as these from one of the 
Christian fathers? — ''Let me see thee, light of my eyes! 
Let me find thee, life of my soul ! Let me embrace thee, 
desire of my heart ! Let me retain thee, my heavenly 
bridegroom ! Let me never lose thee, my glory and my 
God ! my sweet comfort ! my eternal blessedness !" Christian, 
dost thou love the Saviour ? and will not love prompt thee to 
praise ? What is praise but the overflowing of love — the 
heart leaping through the lips toward God ? It is the 
atmosphere of heaven, and the breath of angels — the most 
reasonable service that mortals can render to their Maker — 
the most acceptable incense that sinners can offer to their 
Saviour. 0, can one of us forget the love of Jesus, or with- 
hold the grateful tribute of the tongue ? 

"Praise, flow for ever! if astonisliment 
Will give thee leave ! My praise, for ever flow ! 
Praise ardent, cordial, constant — to high Heaven, 
More fragrant than Arabia sacrificed, 
And all her spicy mountains in a flame !" 



THE RETURN TO HEAVEN. 175 

V. — The solemn assent of the church to the 

RECORD. 

This is expressed in the "Amen'^ which concludes the 
narrative. It is wanting in most of the versions, and proba- 
bly was not written by St. Luke himself, but subsequently 
added by others, as an expression of their faith in the genu- 
ineness and authenticity of the Gospel, and their hearty con- 
currence in " praising and blessing God.' ' They knew what 
they assented to : they knew that they had followed no ^' cun- 
ningly devised fable,'^ that their Lord was alive to die no 
more, and that his ascension furnished his people with abund- 
ant cause for gratitude and joy; and they deliberately and 
heartily added their solemn "Amen'' to the record. 

And who will not join the response ? Who does not re- 
joice in his Saviour's return to heaven ? Are we pleased at 
the joy of the husbandman, reaping the harvest of his painful 
toil; or the joy of the traveller, reaching the termination of 
a fatiguing journey; or the joy of the mariner, leaping upon 
his native shore after a tempestuous voyage; or the joy of 
the warrior, returning in triumph from a protracted and peril- 
ous campaign? Are we glad to see the captive emerging 
from the dungeon, or the exile recalled to his country, or the 
long-absent son welcomed once more to the home of his child- 
hood ? Does it gratify us to hear that the invalid is gradually 
recovering his wasted strength, or that the worthy poor have 
suddenly come into possession of an ample fortune, or that 
calumniated virtue has triumphantly vindicated itself, and 
put all its adversaries to shame? Do we congratulate the 
bridegroom on his nuptials, or rejoice with the patriotic states- 
man in his success, or make ourselves merry for the inaugura- 
tion of a president or the coronation of a king ? What, then, 
should be our feelings to see the Captain of our salvation 
triumphing over the last prostrate foe, and ascending from 
the scene of conflict to '^ the joy that was set before him?" 



176 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

Who, that has sympathized in his suflferings and wept at his 
cross, will not rejoice to see him seated upon his throne, and 
^'crowned with glory and honor/' no longer the man of sor- 
rows, but an exalted Prince and Saviour — the supreme Ruler 
of the highest heavens — the one grand Absorber of all au- 
thority, and dignity, and glory — the great Luminary of the 
spiritual universe, around whom all lesser lights revolve, and 
from whom they derive their splendors ? 

The innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of just 
men made perfect, were waiting for his return to heaven. 
True, they knew no sin, and needed no sacrifice. But felt 
they no interest in the objects of his advent? Burned they 
with no solicitude for the development of the mystery ? And 
when Christ ascended, brought he no gladdening intelligence 
to the ransomed and the unfallen ? And when he entered 
the celestial Jerusalem, and resumed the abdicated throne, 
was there no reverent prostration of seraphic and cherubic 
legions — no rapturous chanting, by patriarchs, prophets, and 
martyrs, of '' Worthy, worthy, worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain I" His labor of love on earth was finished with the 
blessing pronounced upon his people ; and "the general assem- 
bly and Church of the firstborn" above were longing for his 
arrival, that to them might be made known the glorious mys- 
tery into which they had so long desired to look; and when 
he departs for this very purpose, 0, who — loving him never 
so ardently — would detain him from a work which shall kindle 
new joy in heaven, and waken a song such as till now hath 
never thrilled its minstrelsy ! 

But we are personally interested in his ascension. When 
Joseph's prison-companion was restored to liberty and to 
office, he forgot the worthy Hebrew, and made no intercession 
for him to Pharaoh. But Christ carried his love with him 
when he ascended ; and still he kindly remembers his people, 
and speaks of them affectionately to the Father; and all the 



THE RETURN TO HEAVEN. 177 

glorious occupations of his kingdom, and the songs of adoring 
seraphim, and the countless crowns that sparkle at his feet, 
cannot charm him into forgetfulness of their condition. Our 
" Great High-priest that has passed into the heavens,'' he is 
this hour pleading the merit of his sacrifice for them that are 
ready to perish; and through his sprinkled blood we '^come 
boldly unto the throne of grace," and " the consuming fire" 
smiles benignantly upon our approach. And if Christ had 
not ascended, the Comforter would not have come, and there 
would have been no representative of the Saviour in the 
world, no miraculous authentication of the gospel, no inspired 
record of our redemption, no efficient application of the pur- 
chased mercy, no radical renovation of our fallen nature, no 
internal witness of our pardon and adoption, and preaching 
would have been powerless, and prayer would have been pro- 
fitless, and virtue would have been homeless on earth, and 
humanity would have been hopeless of heaven. 

Finally, Jesus hath gone up, and taken possession of the 
kingdom in our name ; and when the promised place is pre- 
pared, and the number of his elect accomplished, he shall 
come again, and receive us to himself; and where he is, there 
shall his servants be — heirs of God, and joint-heirs with 
Jesus Christ; sharing the glory which he shares with the 
Eternal Father. for words to depict the reward of the 
righteous 1 for an adequate emblem of the triumphant 
spirit, and its glorified material investiture ! "It doth not 
yet appear what we shall be." Eye hath not seen : ear hath 
not heard : heart hath not conceived. The brightest visions 
of genius fade before the ineffable reality, and the harps of 
the seraphim tremble beneath the burden of its song. 0, 
what wisdom, and honor, and blessedness, are there ! what 
ravishing revealments of mystery ! what progressive develop- 
ment of the higher faculties ! what new capacities of know- 
ledge and enjoyment ! what blissful fellowship with the elder 



178 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

children of immortality ! what transporting views of God, and 
the wonders of his grace ! what amazing force and facility of 
motion ! what angelic beauty of form and feature ! what per- 
petual advancement from rank to rank, from sphere to sphere, 
from throne to throne, among the celestial powers and prin- 
cipalities ! Have you ever pondered the scriptural types of 
heaven ? Its ransomed denizens are kings with many crowns, 
conquerors with many palms, worshipping in a temple enlight- 
ened by the blaze of Divinity, led by the Lamb to fountains 
of living waters, losing their spirits in ecstasies of melody, 
inhabiting a city in which every sense hath its gratification, 
and every desire its fulfilment — a city adorned with all the 
jewelry of creation, and endowed with more than the immuni- 
ties of Eden — a city whose jasper walls an enemy never 
scaled, whose pearly gates pestilence never entered, whose 
crystal palaces death never invaded, and on whose golden 
pavement tears never fell ! Behold what wealth of imagery, 
drawn from every storehouse of nature, to furnish a repre- 
sentation of the believer's future residence and reward ! Yet 
this is but a shadow of the glory to be revealed. Creation 
cannot furnish material for a worthy similitude. The blissful 
cycles of eternity alone can solve the question — " What is the 
Christian heaven V' All that the Scriptures say upon the 
subject is an effort of language to convey an idea of what no 
language can describe ; assuring us, however, that whatever 
can be needful or desirable to redeemed and immortal man — 
whatever is pleasant in guiltless sensation, or delightful in 
holy consciousness — whatever is charming in scenery or en- 
chanting in sound — whatever makes matter beautiful, or spirit 
happy — whatever suits the noblest powers, or the purest affec- 
tions — ^yea, that God himself — God in all the plenitude of 
his communicable goodness — shall be included in the ever- 
lasting portion secured by our Saviour's ascension for them 
that love him ! 



THE RETURN TO HEAVEN. 179 

If such is our interest in the event, how can we withhold 
our ''Amen'' to the record? Has Christ gone up to the 
Father? Cheerfully we let him go; since we are not the 
losers, but the gainers ; since he cannot forget his people, and 
hath sent them ''another Comforter," and ever liveth to 
make intercession for them, and will ultimately come again 
and take them to the provided habitation in the heavens ! 

Blessed Jesus ! thou hast ascended in triumph, trampling 
our last enemy in chains, and winning for us a splendid and 
immortal crown ! And shall we grieve for thy departure ? 
We rejoice and give thanks to thee, " The Kesurrection and 
The Life !" We love thy appearing, we long for thy king- 
dom, and shout our glad concurrence in thy praise ! "Amen.'' 



180 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 



XI.— THE PERPETUAL ADVOCATE. 

In all nations and all ages, man, conscious of guilt and ap- 
prehensive of punishment, has felt the need of a mediator to 
stand between him and his offended Maker. Such mediators 
the pagans seek in their several subordinate divinities. Such 
mediators the papists imagine in the souls of departed saints. 
Such a mediator the Christian finds in " the Man Christ 
Jesus" — ^^God manifest in the flesh" — " sl priest forever 
after the order of Melchisedec" — standing midway between 
the Divine Sovereign and the human rebel, and laying his 
hand upon both — uniting the two natures in his person, and 
by consequence equally interested in the honor of God and the 
happiness of man — his humanity assuring us of his sympathy 
and love, his Divinity giving merit to his sacrifice and preva- 
lence to his plea, and both together qualifying him to be " a 
propitiation for our sins" and "the Prince of our Salvation." 
" He ever liveth to make intercession for us."* Let us in- 
quire into the nature of his office, his qualifications for its 
fulfilment, and the henefits accruing to his people. 

I. " To MAKE intercession" is to go between two par- 
ties, to plead with the one for the other. 

Very different, however, is our Lord's intercession for us, 
from our intercession for others. We intercede for others in 

* Heb. vii. 25. 



THE PERPETUAL ADVOCATE. 181 

the name of Christ : he for us in his own name. "We approach 
the Father for others through the merit of Christ : he for us 
throusrh no merit but his own. Our intercession for others is 
a mere private deed of charity : his for us, an official act, a 
part of his priestly function, indispensable to the completion 
of his work. He died to atone for us : he lives to plead for 
us. As the Hebrew high-priest, having slain the victim with- 
out, presented the blood in the Holy of Holies, so the ''High- 
priest of our profession,'' having made his soul a sacrifice for 
Bin, produces and pleads his sufferings before the Father. 

His sacrifice and his intercession are equally important and 
mutually dependent, being distinct acts of the same sacerdotal 
office. Without the sacrifice, there would have been no ground 
for the intercession : without the intercession, there would 
have been no efficacy in the sacrifice. The sacrifice renders 
the intercession influential with Grod : the intercession ren- 
ders the sacrifice available to man. The one removes the ob- 
stacles to reconciliation : the other brings the adverse parties 
together. Therefore the two acts, constantly conjoined in the 
type, are equally conjoined in the Antitype : — "If any man 
sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the 
righteous ; and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for 
ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.'' 

But between the typical mediation and the antitypical there 
is an important difference. The former derived all its virtue 
and utility from the latter, and the supervention of the latter 
has abolished the former for ever. The Jewish high-priest 
entered into the Holy of Holies every year : Christ has en- 
tered into heaven once for all. The Jewish high-priest pre- 
sented himself before the Divine G-lory only at stated seasons : 
Christ is ever within the vail, sprinkling the mercy-seat with 
his blood. The Jewish high-priest had to atone and pray for 
himself, as well as his people : Christ needs for himself nei- 



182 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

ther atonement nor prayer, and is wholly and incessantly oc- 
cupied with the interests of redeemed men. 

It has been a question, whether his intercession is vocal or 
voiceless — whether he pleads for us with words and arguments, 
or only by presenting his sufferings as the price of our redemp- 
tion. It is a matter of no practical importance. We know 
that he has ^^ entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the 
presence of God for us/^ This is enough. He has ascended 
with all his wounds. He stands before the throne as a lamb 
newly slain. His presence there immortalizes Calvary in the 
memory of Grod. It is as if his crucifixion were perpetuated 
in heaven. It is as if he had carried his cross with him when 
he ascended, and planted it before the throne of the Father, 
and still hung writhing upon the crimson wood, a perpetual 
appeal alike to the Divine mercy and the Divine justice in 
behalf of all for whom he died. 

Eschylus, a G-recian poet of illustrious name, was con- 
demned to die. As they were about to lead him forth to exe- 
cution, his brother, Aminius, who had distinguished himself 
at the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Platea, and lost an 
arm in the service of his country, advanced in front of the 
judges, threw off his mantle, presented the maimed limb, and 
pointed to his brother. The silent appeal was effectual : Es- 
chylus was pardoned and released. Thus — ay, and with a 
power and a pathos inconceivably greater — pleads for us the 
Divine Mediator. Aminius interceded before men : Christ, 
before Grod. Aminius interceded for his brother : Christ, for 
his enemies and murderers. Aminius interceded for a single 
individual : Christ for the whole human race. Aminius in- 
terceded for the pardon of a solitary offence : Christ, for the 
forgiveness of sins more numerous than the sands of the sea. 
Aminius interceded for a salvation from human penalty, 
and the preservation of a mortal life : Christ, for a deliver- 



THE PERPETUAL ADVOCATE. 183 

ance from Divine vengeance, and the bestowment of life 
eternal. Aminius interceded as a mere man, the equal of 
Eschylus, and the inferior of his judges : Christ, as God, Je- 
hovah's Fellow, the Eternal Co-equal of the Father. Aminius 
had no plea to offer in behalf of Eschylus, but his own patri- 
otic valor and suffering, the service he had rendered his coun- 
try, and which his country had a right to demand : Christ 
pleads the voluntary, and therefore infinitely meritorious, sur- 
render of himself — his immaculate soul and body — to the 
agony and the ignominy of an unparalleled sacrifice, '^ for us 
men and our salvation.^' 

And thus it is that he destroys the works of the devil. 
He advocates our cause against the accusations of our great 
adversary. He is '^ a friend at court,^^ counteracting in our 
behalf the calumnies of hell. Satan toils to widen the breach 
between heaven and earth : Christ seeks to restore the inter- 
rupted friendship, and bind the two worlds in a covenant of 
eternal amity. Satan claims our guilty souls as his lawful 
captives and prey — the outlaws of Heaven^s dominion : Christ 
makes " intercession for the transgressors,' ' saying — ^' Deliver 
from going down to the pit ! I have found a ransom !" As 
he interceded for his disciples in the garden, and for his mur- 
derers on the cross, so now he intercedes for both saints and 
sinners before the heavenly throne. 



II. But what are the qualifications of an intercessor ? 
They are all found in "the Man Christ Jesus.'' 

Is it ivisdom ? He is " the Wisdom of God." In him 
'^ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." His 
understanding is infinite, and his skill is infallible. He is 
thoroughly acquainted with the case which he has undertaken, 
and will certainly conduct it to the happiest issue— will cer- 
tainly so manage it as to secure the salvation of all them that 
believe. 



184 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

Is it faithfulness ? He is ^^ the true and faithful witness/^ 
He is " a faithful high-priest in things pertaining to God/' You 
may safely trust your interest in his hands. He will not be- 
tray you. He will not deceive you. He is a true friend that 
loveth at all times — a friend that sticketh closer than a bro- 
ther — the same yesterday and to-day and for ever — without 
variableness or shadow of turning. 

Is it sympathy ? " We have not a high-priest that cannot 
be touched with a feeling of our infirmities.^' ^' In all our 
afflictions he is afflicted.'' That he might be able to enter 
into all our feelings, he visited our sinful world, assumed our 
suffering nature, was made in all things like unto his brethren, 
and tempted in all points like as we are. ^'Surely, he hath 
borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;" 

**And in his measure feels afresh 
What every member bears." 

Is it interest ? He has made our cause his own. He has 
identified our salvation with his glory. He pleads for us with 
the ardor and solicitude of an elder brother. He pleads for 
us as the purchase of his blood, demanding in our behalf what 
he suffered to secure. He hath loved us unto the death. 
His honor as Mediator is connected with his success. He 
must succeed, or his whole plan of redemption is a failure, 
and the travail of his soul is lost. How, then, can he faint 
or weary in his work of love ? 

Is it influence? He is the ^^Only-begotten Son" of the 
Judge with whom he pleads. He is the " Well-Beloved " of 
the Father, with whom the Father is " ever well pleased," 
and whom he " heareth alway." There is between him and 
the Father a unity of nature and of will. The Son asks what 
the Father has expressly promised, and what he delights to 
grant. Can you disregard the prayer of your child, when he 
requests what you have pledged yourself to bestow, on condi- 



THE PERPETUAL ADVOCATE. 185 

tion of his asking ? And is God less inclined to answer the 
prayer of his Son ? Has Christ less influence with the Father 
than your child has with you ? 

" The Father hears him pray, 
His dear Anointed One : 
He cannot turn away 

The presence of his Son." 

Is it satisfaction ? He has suffered for our sins, and pro- 
vided an effectual counteractive of their consequences. He 
has repaired the violated honor of the law, and vindicated the 
insulted government of God. He is the Lamb slain as our 
atonement — the Substitute that delivers us from the curse by 
becoming a curse in our stead. Without such an expedient, 
God could not have exercised mercy toward the guilty. Mer- 
cy moved in his heart, but could not find its way. Holiness, 
Justice, and Truth, each interposed an insuperable barrier. 
The outraged law must be honored or avenged. The debt 
incurred must be paid or punished. But the law is honored, 
and its violator may be forgiven. But the debt is paid, and 
the debtor may be discharged. Christ has satisfied, by his 
own personal suffering for sinners, all the claims of God and 
the universe against them. Here is the ground of his inter- 
cession, and the secret of his success. He pleads for us be- 
cause he died for us. As our Mediator, he lives to claim 
what he died to procure. He demands the salvation of the 
believer as his purchased right. And thus " Mercy rejoic- 
eth against judgment.^' Yea, God can be just, and justify 
him that believeth in Jesus; but he could not be just, and 
disregard the intercession of his Son. 

III. Such are the qualifications of our Advocate — such the 
gracious office he performs for us in heaven. And what are 
THE RESULTS ? Has the Father pledged himself to grant his 



186 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

Son whatever lie demands for his redeemed ? Then we have 
only to inquire what he pleads for on our behalf, in order to 
ascertain how we are benefited by his plea. 

He pleads for further probation. The privilege has been 
forfeited a thousand times. Fruitless fig-trees, cumbering the 
ground, we deserve nothing but the axe and the fire. And 
often has the axe been lifted, and often has the fire been kin- 
dled. But as often has the dresser of the vineyard prayed for 
us, and therefore we are not consumed. Every moment is a 
purchased mercy ; and if Jesus should cease his intercession, 
instant destruction would follow. 

He pleads for the continuance of the Spirit. The agency 
of the Spirit is necessary to our salvation. He comes to com- 
municate what Christ died to procure. His office is to reprove 
and convince, to enlighten the understanding, quicken the 
conscience, and renew and purify the heart. All saving virtue 
is attributable to his influen>ce. He strives with men — meets 
them on their way to ruin, and wrestles to turn them back. 
He worketh in them, to enable them to work out their own 
salvation. All true repentance and saving virtue are attribu- 
table to his influence. But some ^^ do always resist the Holy 
Ghost,'' while others often quench his light and grieve his 
love; and he would depart from us, and leave us hopeless and 
unblest; but our Advocate is before the sprinkled mercy- 
seat, and the purchased grace is not withdrawn. 

He pleads for the pardon of our sins. Even while we 
are going on still in our trespasses, he is praying, — '^ Father, 
forgive them, for they know not what they do T' Even while 
we are constantly crucifying him afresh, and putting him to 
an open shame, he lifts his thorn-pierced brow and bleeding 
palms before the throne in our behalf. As he actually inter- 
ceded for his enemies upon the cross, so now he is virtually 
crucified for them in heaven. But when he sees in us the 
signs of true contrition — when we begin to turn, penitent and 



THE PERPETUAL ADVOCATE. 187 

pmyerful, from our evil ways — when we look upon him we 
have pierced, and mourn for our baseness and cruel ingrati- 
tude, — 0; then it is that the marks of crucifixion in his lifted 
hands are most eloquent in our cause, and every crimson drop 
upon his temples becomes an effectual argument for our for- 
giveness ! 

*'Five bleeding wounds he bears, 
Received on Calvary: 
They pour effectual prayers, 

They strongly speak for me: 
Forgive him ! forgive ! they cry. 
Nor let that ransomed sinner die!" 

He pleads for the acceptance of our services. There is no 
merit in our repentance and faith to recommend us to God ; 
but our repentance and faith are rendered acceptable to him 
solely through the mediation of his Son. There is no merit 
in our prayers, nor in our praises, nor in our obedience, nor in 
our deeds of charity, nor in any virtue we can exercise, nor 
in any work we can perform — no worth, or influence, or utility, 
except what they derive from our glorious High- priest, who 
stands ever at the altar, collecting the offerings of piety into 
the golden censer of his merit, and presenting them as sweet 
incense to the Father. His sacrifice is the only way of ap- 
proach to Grod. His advocacy is the only medium of accept- 
able worship. All our devotions — whether of prayer or 
praise — whether in the closet or the temple — must be ad- 
dressed to the Father in the name of the Son — must be 
purified by his blood, and perfumed by his breath, before 
they can be well-pleasing to the Infinite Holiness. 

He pleads for our unimi in cTiariti/. Just before his 
passion he prayed thus for his people : ^' That they all may be 
one, as thou. Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also 
may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast 
sent me.'^ And what he prayed for on earth, he still prays 



188 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

for in heaven. He desires the union and harmony of the 
Church, as an elder brother desires the union and harmony of 
all his father's children. He sees its importance to the honor 
of his cause, as well as our influence and usefulness, and our 
mutual comfort and edification. Therefore it is an object 
very dear to his heart, for which he constantly prays. And 
shall we strive, and contend, and rend the Church into fac- 
tions, and rally our belligerent forces around our party stand- 
ards with a thousand conflicting interests, while Jesus prays 
that we all may be one in him ? 

He pleads for our entire sanctijication. This was the 
object of his advent, and the end of his cruel sufi'erings. He 
came to '^ save his people from their sins.'' He ^^ loved us, 
and gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all 
iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous 
of good works." Just before he went to the cross, he prayed 
the Father to sanctify his disciples. And can he be less 
solicitous about it, now that he has ascended to his throne ? 
Has he ceased, since his departure, to pray that God would 
shed upon his people the renovating and purifying Spirit ? 
Has the lapse of eighteen hundred years wrought any change 
in his desires concerning the Church ? Are we not indebted 
to his intercession for all the holiness we ever enjoyed, and 
all the hopes of holiness we cherish ? And who will plead 
for sin, while Christ is pleading against it ? Who will neglect 
seeking purity of heart, while Christ is seeking it for us? 
Who will be discouraged in the pursuit, while Christ continues 
his efforts in our behalf? Who will doubt God's willingness 
to bestow his largest blessing, while Christ ever liveth to 
claim for believers the residue of the purchased Spirit ? 

He pleads for our preservation from evil. His people 
are as lambs among wolves. They are exposed to a thousand 
temptations, a thousand delusions, and a thousand perils. 
They have no skill to shun the snare, no strength to resist 



THE PERPETUAL ADVOCATE. 189 

the assault. They will inevitably be conquered and cap- 
tured, unless ^^kept by the power of God, through faith, unto 
salvation.'^ Therefore Jesus prays for them : — " Father, 
keep through thine own power those whom thou hast given 
me : — I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the 
world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil.^^ 
How remarkable were his words to Peter ! — '^ Simon, Simon, 
Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat j 
but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not V Was 
not Peter's salvation in answer to his Master's prayer ? The 
object which brought him from heaven to earth, took him 
back from earth to heaven, and still occupies him there. 
Believer, Satan desires to have thee; but Jesus prays for 
thee ! Thy enemy, as a roaring lion, goeth about to devour ; 
but Jesus prays for thee ! Thou wilt be sorely tempted, and 
thy whole life will be a struggle with evil ; but fear not ! 
Jesus prays for thee ! The prince of darkness is mustering 
his forces, and setting the battle in array against thee ; but 
be not dismayed ! thy Moses is on the mountain, and while 
his bleeding hands are lifted in thy behalf, thou must prevail ! 
He jpleads for ou7' final and eternal salvation. Hear 
him : " Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given 
me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory." 
0, blessed consummation ! Nothing is too great for Christ 
to ask on our behalf. He asks all that he has purchased ) 
and he has purchased all that we can possibly desire or enjoy. 
He has made us heirs of God, and joint-heirs with himself. 
He has said : " He that overcometh shall inherit all things." 
He has said : ''If any man serve me, him will my Father 
honor; and where I am, there shall my servant be." What 
more could we wish ? What more could he ask ? Do you 
fear coming short of the promised rest? Jesus prays for 
you ! He has procured you a place among the '' many man- 
sions," and has a right to demand your admittance there, and 



190 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

the Father cannot deny his claim. When he ascended, the 
keys of the Celestial City were placed in his hand. He 
openeth, and no man shutteth. He shall meet you, with an 
angelic escort, at your coming; and an abundant entrance 
shall be ministered unto you into the everlasting kingdom. 
Thus the hope of the saints shall be realized ; and Emmanuel 
shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied; 
and his prayers for his people all answered, his intercession 
shall cease for ever ; and heaven shall glow with its accumu- 
lated glories, and vibrate with a vocal joy, such as never 
before woke the thunder of its minstrelsy ! 

Such are the objects of Christ's intercession. Such are 
the benefits accruing to believers. Let us learn to appreciate. 
" We love him, because he first loved us.'^ But who can 
estimate the riches of his grace, or render him an adequate 
return ? It is related of Marcus Curtius, that when informed, 
by an oracle, that a great chasm, which had been opened by 
an earthquake, could not be closed till something very pre- 
cious should be thrown into it, he went and plunged in him- 
self. So Christ cast himself into the gulf that yawned to 
devour us all ; and lo, to the believer it is closed for ever ! 
The Son of God took our place in the universe, and wrought 
out our redemption in agony and blood. He saw the 
descending stroke, flew between it and the guilty victim, 
and quenched the flaming sword of vengeance in his own 
heart. Having died to redeem us on earth, he ascended to 
represent us in heaven. He is surrounded by adoring hosts 
of the sinless, and myriads of ransomed sinners are pressing 
into his presence, and every hour brings him new trophies, 
and lays additional diadems at his feet. But the unparalleled 
splendors of his triumph, and the glorious occupations of his 
kingdom, and the many-voiced anthem of his worship, and 
the satisfaction with which he welcomes the saints to their 
eternal habitations, cannot make him unmindful of the neces- 



THE PERPETUAL ADVOCATE. 191 

sities of our humble condition. He still prays for his suf'^ 
faring Church and his ransomed world; and will never cease 
till the last believer comes singing to the heavenly Zion. 

" Lamb of God ! was ever pain, 
Was ever love like thine ?" 

In vain we attempt to fathom the abyss — to measure the im- 
mensity. Can you imagine how a doomed culprit will love 
the friend that interposes his personal sufferings and interces- 
sion to save him from a shameful death ? Can you imagine with 
what ardor, if he has aught within him like a human heart, 
he will devote his rescued life to the interests of that friend ? 
Ah, my brethren I it is too poor an illustration of what we 
owe to our Immortal Advocate in heaven ! Blessed Jesus ! 
help me to feel the obligation I can never estimate ! 

" Too mucli to thee I cannot give, 

Too much I cannot do for thee: 
Let all thy love, and all thy grief. 

Graved on my heart for ever be ! 
Were the whole realm of nature mine, 

That were a present far too small ; 
Love so amazing — so divine — 

Demands my soul, my life, my all!" 

But if we are always in the presence of God, why worship 
him through a mediator ? If Grod is merciful and gracious, 
what need of an intercessor? This is the Divine appoint- 
ment ; and he who does not worship according to the method 
prescribed, does not worship at all j and he who does not 
come to the Father in the way which he has sanctified, does 
not come at all ; and he who is not willing to be saved by the 
only medium which the Infinite Wisdom has revealed, cannot 
be saved at all. There is no true religion without Christ — 
no pardon, nor holiness, nor eternal life. Our services must 
be sanctified by his blood : our incense must be offered in his 



192 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

censer. Poor guilty creatures, what can we do without 
Christ ? Every moment we need the merit of his death, and 
the influence of his intercession. Luther used to say, "I 
cannot meet an absolute God.^^ sinner ! how canst thou 
encounter '' a consuming fire ?'' And such is God without a 
mediator. But God in Christ is placable — compassionate — 
waiting to be gracious — no less a loving Father than a right- 
eous Judge. that men could appreciate the grace that has 
so modified his relation to the guilty ! Behold that prison, 
crowded with criminals. They have conspired against the 
best of monarchs. They have filled the land with violence, 
and waded in loyal blood. The hand of Justice has seized 
them, and they are condemned to die. Too late they lament 
their madness. It is their last night ; and the clank of chains 
and the wail of despair make the gloom of their dungeons 
hideous. But who is this that enters with such an aspect of 
sorrow, and addresses them in such words of love ? It is the 
son of their offended sovereign. '^ Unhappy men !'' he ex- 
claims — " I have sacrificed much, and suffered more, and 
perilled all, for your salvation. I come to conduct you to my 
father, and plead with him for your pardon. Arise, and fol- 
low me, and second my intercession with your presence and 
your penitential tears V^ 0, what joy there is among that 
guilty crew ! what passionate expressions of gratitude ! what 
glad haste of preparation ! what tremulous solicitude for the 
issue ! But this is a poor emblem of what Jesus hath done 
for you. Think what he relinquished when he exchanged his 
throne for a manger. Think of his agony in the garden, and 
his tortures on the tree. Think how he pleads for you before 
the mercy-seat, with a tongue in every reeking wound, and 
an appeal in every sprinkled drop. The tears and prayers 
of all heaven would be less eloquent in your behalf. A 
slaughtered Lamb, for eighteen centuries he has stood there, 
and shall stand till time shall be no more. For you, for me. 



THE PERPETUAL ADVOCATE. 193 

for all, he has obtained an amnesty — yea, a full reconciliation 
— all the blessings and immunities of adoption. Come, then, 
to the throne of grace, trusting in his mediation, and casting 
your sinful souls upon his infinite merit. His blood is as 
efficacious now, as when, in its first warm gushing, it saved 
the penitent malefactor upon the cross. The Smitten Rock 
sends its healing waters back to the gates of Eden, and for- 
ward to the end of the world ; and the patriarch before the 
flood, and the last believer of Adam's line, are saved through 
the same Mediation. Here Abel found acceptance. Here 
Isaiah reposed in holy confidence. Here rested the faith of 
the apostles. Here triumphed the hope of the martyrs. And 
for me, a poor sinner, what other trust is known ? I look up, 
and see heaven opened. 

" There for me the Saviour stands, 
Shows his wounds and spreads his hands: 
God is love, I know, I feel ! 
Jesus weeps, and loves me still!" 

Is Christ our Advocate with the Father? Then let us 
trust in his influence, committing our cause into his faithful 
hands, and dismissing all needless anxiety and all groundless 
apprehension. ^'I ought,'' says an eloquent preacher,* ^^to 
study Christ as an intercessor. He prayed most for Peter, 
who was to be most tempted. If I could hear him praying 
for me in the next room, I should not fear a million of foes. 
But it makes no difference : he is praying for me." yes ! 
he is praying for us; and Faith hears the voice, and joins in 
the plea; and ''the Father is glorified in the Son," and the 
believer is '' accepted in the Beloved." 

Is Christ our Advocate in heaven? Then let us be his 



* McCheyne. 



194 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

advocates on eartli. Does he plead our cause with God? 
Then let us plead his cause with men. Let us so identify 
ourselves with his interests, that we can say with the Psalmist, 
''The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me." 
"Who of us can exclaim with Saint Jerome,—'' that the 
blasphemous would turn their envenomed tongues on me, and 
cease their persecutions of my Lord !" Who of us can appro- 
priate the sentiment of Saint Bernard, — " Happy, if Christ 
would but condescend to use me as his shield V Who of us 
can sing — 

" I'm not ashamed to own my Lord, 
Nor to defend his cause ; 
Maintain the honor of his word, 
The glory of his cross !" 

Does Christ intercede for us ? Then let us intercede for 
others. He is our example ; and his perpetual prayer in our 
behalf is a perpetual lecture upon our duty to mankind. The 
intercession of the good often procures a respite or a pardon 
for the doomed. "Let me alone," said God to Moses—" Let 
me alone, that I may destroy this people !" He could not 
smite while his servant interceded. The prayer of faith holds 
back the arm of vengeance. While the righteous pray, judg- 
ment delays, and 

" Justice lingers into love !" 

Pray, then, ye righteous, and give Jehovah no rest! Join 
your intercession with that of the great Advocate above I 
Weep and plead for the unbelievers, who are condemned al- 
ready ! See, they hang tremulous over hell, and your prayers 
must prevent their fall ! See, the thunderbolt menaces them 
in mid-heaven, and your prayers must divert its vengeful aim ! 



THE TERPETUAL ADVOCATE. 195 

Jesus, inspire me with somethiug of thy own infinite pity 
for the perishing souls of men ! 

" Enlarge, inflame, and fill my heart 

With boundless charity divine ; 
So shall I all my strength exert, 

And love them with a zeal like thine ; 
And lead them to thy open side — 
The sheep for whom their Shepherd died !" 



196 HEADLANDS OF FAITH 



XII.— THE HEAVENLY PARACLETE. 

The gospel is preeminently " the ministration of the Spirit." 
Under the law, the visitations of the Holy Grhost were com- 
paratively infrequent and extraordinary. A few favored men, 
like Gideon's fleece, imbibed the blessed dew of his special in- 
fluence, while all around remained 

** Unwatered still, and dry." 

The heavenly manifestation was granted chiefly as the pre- 
parative for some peculiar work — the work of the prophet and 
reformer -, and the Jews called it " The Daughter of a Voice.'^ 
— so small and still, and often inarticulate, the communication 
not always understood by the "holy men" themselves, who 
were the organs of its transmission to Israel. But under the 
gospel the Spirit is poured out upon all flesh, especially upon 
those who ask — is given liberally to the saints, and without 
measure to such as occupy the high places of Israel — like the 
precious ointment that ran down the beard of Aaron, even to 
the skirts of his garment — like the dew that descended upon 
the mountain of Zion, where the Lord commanded the bless- 
ing, even life for evermore. This is emphatically " the pro- 
mise of the Father," variously recorded in the Old Testament, 
reiterated and amplified by the Divine Author of the New, 
and so signally fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, and in the 
subsequent history of the apostolic Church. And now, as 



THE HEAVENLY PARACLETE. 197 

Bishop Taylor says, it is " no longer the daughter of a voice, 
but the mother of many voices — the author of divided tongues 
and united hearts'^ — the fountain of innumerable virtues and 
inestimable blessings — the heavenly Paraclete, procured by 
the Son, and sent by the Father, to abide with the Church 
for ever. 

We would aid you, Christian reader, as far as we can, to a 
proper view of this invaluable gift. A full appreciation, only 
the gift itself can give you. Three points concerning the 
Holy Spirit will comprehend all that need be said : — His distinct 
personality, his supreme Divinity, arid his gracious mission. 

I. His distinct personality. 

The Socinians teach that the Holy Ghost is only an attri- 
bute of God, or an emanation from God— that the term is a 
personification of the Divine power, a metonymy for the truth 
of the gospel, or a periphrasis denoting the Deity himself. 
Let us look at these theories : 

Are we told that the term is a periphrastic expression for 
God himself? Admit it, and then tell us how God can send 
himself forth, pour himself out, breathe himself upon the 
Church, or proceed from himself. All these are scriptural ex- 
pressions, and intelligible only on the hypothesis of a dis- 
tinct personality. 

Are we told that the term is a mere metonymy for the doc- 
trine of the gospel ? Admit it, and then tell us how to ex- 
plain the following scriptures : — " He shall not speak of him- 
self; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak." 
^^The Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself unto 
this chariot." Is it the doctrine of the gospel that hears and 
speaks, and speaks not of himself, but only what he hears ? 
Was it the doctrine of the gospel that talked with the apostle, 
and directed him to the chariot of Candace's treasurer? Are 
not these plainly the acts of a personal agent ? 



198 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

Are we told that tlie term is only a personification of tlie 
Divine power ? Admit it, and then tell us how the Holy 
Ghost ^^proceedeth from the Father and the Son'' — how an 
attribute can proceed from the subject in which it inheres — 
how energy can exist apart from the agent by whom it is ex- 
erted ? Admit it, and then tell us why honest men, and men 
inspired of God, in their epistles and discourses, constantly 
use language so liable to mislead their brethren — why teach- 
ers who generally select the plainest and most transparent 
terms they can find, so often indulge in the loftiest figure of 
passion and poetry, in the cool strain of mere reasoning, nar- 
ration, and colloquy? Admit it, and then see into what tauto- 
logical nonsense you degrade the word of God : — " Ye shall 
receive power after that the holy power is come upon you." 
^' God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the holy power and 
with power." " That ye may abound in hope through the 
power of the holy power," ^'In demonstration of the Power 
and of power." " By the power of the power of God." Who 
can believe the apostles guilty of such folly ? 

The Holy Ghost is neither a Divine attribute nor a Divine 
emanation, but a Divine person — a person in the same sense 
as the Father and the Son are persons — a distinct agent in 
the same Godhead. 

His appeUations prove his personality. He is called the 
Paraclete — tbe Counsellor — the Messenger; and the mascu- 
line pronoun — the strongest appellative of personality — is 
constantly applied to him. 

His attributes prove his personality. He possesses know- 
ledge, wisdom, power, goodness, holiness; can be pleased, 
vexed, grieved, offended, resisted, blasphemed; and the 
Scriptures ascribe to him all the feelings, volitions, and other 
essential properties of a personal being. 

His actions prove his personality. He is said to come, to 
take, to give, to show, to teach, to strive, to move, to call, to 



THE HEAVENLY PARACLETE. 199 

search, to seal, to guide, to lead, to bid, to send, to speak, 
to help, to work, to quicken, comfort, create, convince, re- 
prove, inspire, anoint, witness, testify, prophesy, sanctify, 
intercede, dwell in the saints, and bear record in heaven — all 
which are predicable only of personal existence. 

His honors prove his personality. He is associated with 
the Father and the Sou, as a distinct person, and as really a 
person as either, in the formula of baptism given by our Lord 
to his apostles; also in the apostolical invocations, benedic- 
tions, and doxologies ; and there is no intimation in any of 
these that the language is to be taken as figurative, or that 
less is intended than is expressed. If the Father and the 
Son are persons, so is the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is 
an attribute or an emanation, so are the Father and the Son. 
If this term is a metonymy, periphrasis, or personification, so 
are both the others. 

II. — His Supre3Ie Divinity. 

Macedonius and his followers admitted his personality, but 
denied his Divinity — taught that he is the chief angel — the 
most excellent of those blessed creatures employed by God in 
administering the affairs of the Church, conveying good sug- 
gestions to the minds of men, and leading them into the 
knowledge of the truth — therefore called by way of eminence, 
*'The Spirit," and by way of excellence, '^The Holy Spirit." 
Arius held him to be a mere creature, and a creature even 
of the Son, whom he regarded as another creature. We shall 
endeavor to show that these theories, and all others that re- 
gard the Holy Ghost as less than the very and eternal God, 
are destitute of any scriptural basis — that the Holy Ghost is 
God in the same sense that the Father and the Son are God. 

He bears the names of God. Peter said to Ananias : — 
"Why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? 
Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God." The inspired 



200 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

writers frequently call him The Lord, Jehovah, and Jehovah 
of hosts. These are names of supreme Divinity; therefore 
the Holy Ghost is supremely Divine. 

He possesses the perfections of God. Eternity, Immuta- 
bility, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, and Omniscience, are 
ascribed to him throughout the Scriptures. The passages 
are too numerous to admit of quotation, and too well known 
to require it. All these are incommunicable properties of su- 
preme Divinity; therefore the Holy Ghost is supremely Divine. 

He performs the luor/cs of God. The creation and pre- 
servation of all things, the inspiration of the prophets and 
apostles, the gift of tongues, the working of miracles, the 
communication of pardon to the penitent believer in Jesus, 
the renewal and purification of the heart, the production of all 
the fruits of righteousness, the resurrection of the body, and 
the bestowment of life eternal, are all attributed to his agency. 
These are unquestionably peculiar prerogatives of supreme 
Divinity ; therefore the Holy Ghost is supremely Divine. 

He receives the honors of God. A certain American di- 
vine* declares that '^ No inspired man, saint or Christian, till 
John's death, in the year of the world four thousand and one 
hundred, ever prayed to the Holy Spirit, or asked him or 
thanked him for any thing." It is not true. The Holy 
Spirit was worshipped in the Jewish Church, and Moses and 
the prophets honored him as God. The apostles invoked and 
adored him equally with the Father and the Son. Were 
Moses and the prophets inspired and holy men ? Were the 
apostles inspired and holy men ? Did they worship the Fa- 
ther, the Son, and an attribute ? Did they baptize and bless 
in the name of the Father, the Son, and an attribute ? Did 
they invoke and adore a creature of God, an angel of God, an 
attribute of God, an emanation from God, or any thing less 
than God, or any thing else than God ? Is he a jealous God, 

* Alex. Campbell. 



THE HEAVENLY PARACLETE. 201 

who will not give his glory to another, or allow the worship 
of aught beside himself? How is this to be explainedj if the 
Holy Ghost is not God ? 

There is a remarkable saying of our Lord, that all sin may 
be forgiven, except the sin against the Holy Ghost, which he 
declares unpardonable for ever. There is no parallel to this 
passage in all the word of God. It is more terrible than the 
flaming sword at the gate of Paradise, or the unapproachable 
pavilion of God upon Mount Sinai. The Jews had murdered 
the prophets, and now were ready to murder the Lord of the 
prophets, to whom gave all the prophets witness ; yet were 
they within the reach of mercy ; and not till they had blas- 
phemed the Holy Ghost — not till they had rejected the min- 
istration of the Spirit — the last and greatest proof of our 
Lord's Messiahship — did their guilt transcend forgiveness. 
What is the inference ? Why is the crime so enormous, if 
its object is not God? What invests the Holy Ghost with 
such awful sanctity, that it is more perilous to sin against him 
than to sin against the Son of God — than to sin against God 
the Father — what but his equality with both, and the superior 
excellence of his dispensation ? Is it conceivable that all 
other crimes should be within the range of mercy, while this 
alone excludes from grace, and banishes from hope, and de- 
votes to eternal damnation, if the Holy Ghost is not God, but 
only a creature, an angel, an attribute, or an emanation ? 

In short, if the Holy Ghost is not God, the whole Christian 
Church, with very few exceptions, have been deceived ever 
since the days of the apostles; and the apostles themselves 
were deceived ; and if Divinely inspired, as they professed, 
deceived by God himself; and if God does nothing ignorantly 
or accidentally, he intended their deception ; and if he is wise 
and good, their deception has been a blessing to the universe; 
and consequently, error and falsehood are more beneficial than 
truth ; and the Bible, the most useful book in the world, is at 
9* 



202 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

the same time the most deceptive ; and, for aught we can tell, 
the most useful because the most deceptive ; and ninety-nine 
hundredths of its believers are deceived, and have no means of 
being undeceived ; and all truth is fiction, and all faith is de- 
lusion, and all revelation is a lie ! 

III. His GRACIOUS mission. 

According to John xiv. 16, he is sent by the Father in 
answer to the prayer of the Son, so that he is the gift — the 
messenger and representative — of both, and may justly be 
said to proceed from both. 

Concerning the manner of this procession, much has been 
spoken and written, of very little practical utility. The ori- 
ginal word for spirit signifies also wind or breath. When 
Christ imparted the Spirit to his disciples, '^ he breathed on 
them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.'' And when 
the Spirit was more fully manifested ou the day of Pentecost, 
" suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing, 
mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sit- 
ting." These facts have occasioned some to suppose that the 
Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son something 
after the same manner as the breath from the human body. 
^'The Holy Ghost," says Lawson, ^' being the Spirit or breath 
of the Father and the Son, is equally related to both." '^As 
the vital breath of a man," says Owen, '^is continually ema- 
nating from him, yet never wholly separated from him, so 
doth the Spirit of the Father and the Son proceed from them 
by a continual divine emanation, still abiding one with them." 

This theory makes the Holy Spirit rather a Divine influ- 
ence than a Divine agent. The New Testament does indeed 
speak of him as proceeding from the Father and the Son, but 
it is in the character of a distinct hypostasis. Of this, the fol- 
lowing passages are sufficient proof : — " But the Comforter, 
who is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my 



THE HEAVENLY PARACLETE. 203 

name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to 
your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."* ''But 
when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from 
the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from 
the Father, he shall testify of me."f "And because ye are 
sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your 
hearts, crying, Abba, Father."| In the first of these scrip- 
tures the Holy Spirit is said to be sent by the Father in the 
name of the Son ; in the second he is said to be sent by the 
Son, and to proceed from the Father ; and in the third he is 
said to be sent forth by God, though he is called " the Spirit 
of his Son." Hence it appears that he is commissioned by 
both — the messenger and representative of both; and this 
explains the fact of his being denominated alike the Spirit of 
God and the Spirit of Christ — the Spirit of the Father and 
the Spirit of the Son. 

This argument is corroborated by our Blessed Lord's speak- 
ing of the mission of the Holy Ghost as dependent upon his 
own return to heaven. '•' It is expedient for you that I go 
away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto 
you; but if I go away, I will send him unto you."§ 
From this passage it seems that the departure of the Sav- 
iour and the advent of the Comforter stand connected in 
the relation of cause and effect. " God withheld the gift for 
that glorious occasion," says a well-known writer,|| "that he 
might thereby signalize the enthronement of his Son in the 
eyes of the universe, impress the minds of believers with the 
acceptance which their Mediator should meet with on his 
return to heaven, and demonstrate the certain prevalency of 
his intercession on their behalf by answering his first prayer 
for the effusion of the promised Comforter." 

" The Spirit was not yet given, because that Jesus was not 



* .John xiv. 26. f John sv. 20. X Gal. iv. 6 

?■ John xri. 7. 11 The Rev. John Harris 



204 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

yet glorified." Jesus was yet tlie man of sorrows, travailing 
in the strong agony of redemption. And when he ascended 
on high, from the conquest of one world and the ransom of 
another, then he fulfilled his promise, and gave gifts unto 
men. But what gift could he confer, rich enough to grace 
his triumphal entry into the city of God? Had he melted 
down the planetary spheres as he passed them, and moulded 
every one into a jewel for a believer — had he condensed into 
diamonds the stellar nebulae of innumerable suns and systems, 
and poured them out, a sparkling cataract, at the feet of his 
followers — 0, it would have been a poor donation in compari- 
son of what his infinite love bestowed — that blessed gift which 
includes all conceivable grace and benediction — the Heavenly 
Paraclete, to abide with the saints for ever ! 

The influences of the Holy Spirit may be distinguished 
into the ordinary and tlie extraordinary. The extraordinary 
produced those miraculous signs and wonders which accom- 
panied the preaching of the apostles, and constituted Heaven's 
attestation to its truth. Christianity, opposed by Jewish pre- 
judice, and Pagan superstition, and all the natural principles 
of the human heart, could be established in the faith and 
aff"ections of mankind by nothing short of a Divine authenti- 
cation which should startle the world. Therefore, on the day 
of Pentecost, the Holy Ghost came upon the Church, like '^a 
mighty wind,'' with ''cloven tongues of fire;" and forthwith 
those timid and unlettered fishermen became little less than 
angels — great linguists, logicians, and theologians — more than 
a match for the learning of the Sanhedrim, the philosophy of 
the Acropolis, and the eloquence of the forum — their faculties 
strangely enlarged — their apprehensions amazingly quickened 
— their minds stored with such knowledge as no time nor 
application could command — endued with supernatural bold- 
ness and energy — invincible by fire and flood, by cross and 
scourge ; and at their coming death stalked away from his in- 
tended victim, and demons deserted their human tenements, 



THE HEAVENLY PARACLETE. 205 

and Pharisee and philosopher alike bowed meekly to the nama 
of Jesus, and tongues that had clamored for his blood and 
derided him on the cross acknowledged '^ his eternal power 
and Godhead." 

The building completed, the scaffolding is no longer needed. 
These extraordinary manifestations were bestowed upon the 
Church, not as her perpetual inheritance, but only as the ne- 
cessary authentication of the apostolic commission and teach- 
ing, to cease upon the thorough establishment of Christianity. 
Continued after this great end was secured, they would soon 
have lost their miraculous character, and failed to attract the 
attention of mankind; and thus their perpetuation would 
have defeated the design of their introduction. 

But there are other offices of the Holy Spirit, of a more 
ordinary character, which are permanent in their utility, and 
essential to the salvation of the soul. The whole process of 
our spiritual illumination and renovation is effected by his 
gracious agency, and it is a work which no other agency could 
accomplish. 

"The world lieth in the wicked one." What power shall 
break its guilty slumber, and dissolve the damning charm? 
Shall troops of angels come down to fascinate us with " the 
beauty of holiness?" Shall legions of demons be summoned 
to terrify us into obedience with the menace of eternal fire 
and chains ? Shall the Crucified confront us with wounded 
hands, and thorn-pierced temples, and vesture dipped in blood? 
All would be ineffectual. The conscience must be quickened, 
and the heart must be renewed by a power having immediate 
access to our consciousness, and commanding whatever instru- 
mentalities are most suitable for moving our affections and 
moulding our moral tastes. To this work nothing is adequate 
but the Spirit of the living Grod. He alone can subdue the 
carnal mind, " mortify the deeds of the body," " crucify the 
flesh with the affections and lusts,'^ and "bring every thou^^ht 



206 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

into captivity to the obedience of Christ." An angel was 
sent before Israel to conquer and drive out their enemies : 
God himself descends into our hearts to subdue and extermi 
nate ours. The strong man armed is ejected by a stronger; 
and the frequent assault from without is repulsed only by a 
superior power within. None but a God can bruise Satan 
under our feet ; none but an indwelling and inreigning God 
can effectually overcome the terrible league of fallen passions 
and infernal agencies that war against the soul. 

The chief means of the Spirit's operation is the word. 
Therefore he is called " the Spirit of truth, '^ and the Bible 
is termed ^Hhe sword of the Spirit. '^ It is the Spirit that 
gives the weapon its edge and the stroke its force. Without 
his agency, Divine truth would be as powerless upon the hu- 
man heart as moonbeams on the frozen sea. The Spirit is 
the lens that collects the scattered rays into a focus, and 
makes them burn into the sinner's heart. '^ He sometimes 
brings home the law of God with such an energy, and visits 
the soul with such a vivifying power, that the whole inner 
man seems converted into conscience ;'' and the sinner cries 
out in agony, "What must I do to be saved?" Then he 
leads him, by sweet persuasives and consoling promises, to 
"the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world," 
and diffuses heavenly peace and joy through the soul that he 
has filled with apprehension and alarm. 

But he frequently works without the word, or any other 
visible means. Indeed, if he did not, there could be no pos- 
sibility of salvation for by far the greater portion of the hu- 
man race. It is thus that " the grace of God which bringeth 
salvation hath appeared unto all men." He awakens and 
quickens the conscience, softens and subdues the rebellious 
heart, works in the penitent soul a saving faith, renews and 
purifies that soul, bears witness within to the mighty change, 
implants and nourishes all the fruits of righteousness, sheds 



THE HEAVENLY PARACLETE. 207 

abroad the love of God in our hearts, enables us to will and 
to do of his good pleasure, strengthens us with might in the 
inner man, and seals us to the day of redemption. 

This statement of the several functions of the Spirit is sus- 
tained by the ample testimony of Scripture. '^ He shall re- 
prove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment." 
'' Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified, in the 
name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.'^ ^'Ac- 
cording to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regene- 
ration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which he shed on us 
abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Lord." " Ye have re- 
ceived the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father : 
the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are 
the children of God." " The Spirit helpeth our infirmities — 
maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be 
uttered." And as every part of our salvation is the work of 
the Spirit, all the Christian virtues are called " the fruit of 
the Spirit," and the Spirit is denominated " the earnest of our 
inheritance." 

And thus it is that the Spirit glorifies Christ. He takes of 
the things of Christ, and shows them unto us. He exhibits 
the knowledge of Christ as the most transcendent science, 
and the eternal life of the soul. He makes the gospel of 
Christ the power of God unto salvation to every one that 
believeth. He bestows the blessing which Christ died to 
purchase, and efi'ects by power a redemption already procured 
by price. By the word of Christ he achieves a greater 
wonder than the creation of worlds — the new creation of the 
soul. He holds before us this Divine mirror, that we may 
behold herein the glory of the Lord, and be changed by suc- 
cessive degrees into the same image. Christ is the pattern 
after which he works — the model by which he moulds the re- 
novated soul. He makes the new creature like Christ, that 



208 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

Christ may be " glorified in his saints, and admired in all 
them that believe.'^ 

There is one special function of the Spirit which must not 
be overlooked; it is of vast importance in the Christian 
economy : I mean the calling of men to the work of the min- 
istry. Many instances might be quoted from the New Testa- 
ment. It is evident that the primitive Christian Church set 
apart none to the sacred office without satisfactory assurance 
that they were moved thereto by the Holy Ghost. We have 
no scriptural intimation that this function of the Spirit would 
ever be suspended while Christ has a Church on earth. Mir- 
acles have ceased, because they have done their work ', but a 
Divine designation and commission to the ministry of the 
word is still necessary, and will be till the end of the world. 
Here the Church has no prerogative ; and the ordination of 
the sacred functionary by the imposition of hands imparts no 
spiritual qualification or Divine authority, but is only the 
solemn formal recognition of his call by the Holy Ghost. 

Thus we see why the Spirit is called "The Comforter." 
His office is preeminently to comfort the Church. To all true 
believers, he is a perpetual spring of joy. Christ himself, 
while on earth, was the comforter of his disciples. But per- 
sonally he could not remain with them for ever. He must 
appear in heaven for his people. But when he departed, he 
sent them "another Comforter;" and his influence is a far 
greater blessing than Christ's personal presence could have 
been, had he remained on earth to the end of time. His per- 
sonal presence, however his teaching might impress, and how- 
ever his example might charm, could never, like the direct 
energy of the Holy Spirit, have sanctified and saved the soul. 
Tabernacling in a human body, he could have occupied but 
one locality at a time, and multitudes could never have known 
him, and most would have heard him but once or twice in 



THE HEAVENLY PARACLETE. 209 

their lives. But the Spirit, confined by no corporeal investi- 
turC; can operate everywhere at the same moment — moving a 
young man to the ministry in Boston, and quickening the 
conscience of a gambler in San Francisco — inspiring the 
appeal of a preacher in New Orleans, and softening the heart 
of a sinner in Nova Scotia — inflaming the zeal and charity of 
a colporteur in Paris, and restraining the rashness of a sen- 
ator at Washington — sustaining the faith of a missionary at 
Canton, and defeating the plot of a murderer in Mexico — en- 
lightening the Indian on the Rocky Mountains, and regene- 
rating the devil-worshipper at Cape Colony — remonstrating 
with the Hindoo mother on her way with her daughter to the 
Ganges, and turning the weary hopes of an Australian gold- 
digger to treasures in heaven — impelling the Chinese insur- 
gents to the subversion of the national idolatry, and breathing 
the peace of G-od over the Christian assemblies of Christen- 
dom — offering more than diamonds to the toiler in Brazilian 
mines, and soothing the last anguish of a British soldier in 
the Crimea — listening to the prayer of the Hottentot, and the 
sigh of the Siberian exile — pouring light upon the mind of 
the Patagonian, and warmth into the heart of the Greenlander 
— thrilling a missionary meeting in London, and refreshing a 
native prayer circle in Tahiti — converting the Jew at the gate 
of Jerusalem, consoling the mariner upon the stormy main, 
and cheering many an expiring saint with visions of heaven ! 
In short, he can operate, in the same instant, on every human 
heart. And is not this better than the perpetual abode of 
Christ in person with his people? Had he sent ^^ twelve 
legions of angels" to minister to every heir of salvation, the 
agency had been far less efficient. It is " as if Christ had 
turned himself into spirit, and poured himself forth upon the 
world.''* 

* Kev. John Harris. 



210 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

Such is the work of the Spirit. '^ He dwelleth with you, 
and shall be in jou.'^ The Church is a temple, and he the 
glorious occupant. The Church is a body, and he the living 
soul. And he *^ shall abide with you for ever.'' Consoling 
promise ! The Captain of our salvation has returned to hea- 
ven- his apostles, with all their miraculous gifts, are gone; 
one after another, the watchmen of Zion disappear from the 
wall; and successive generations of the great militant host 
pass on to join the host triumphant. But amidst all the 
vicissitudes and bereavements of our Israel, the blessed and 
adorable Paraclete is ever with us ; marches, like the pillar of 
cloud and fire, in the van of our tribes ; sits like the Shekinah 
in our Holy Places ; and shall never leave our tabernacle, till 
it is pitched in the promised land of everlasting peace, and 
God shall be all in all I 

AVherefore, my beloved brethren, " grieve not the Holy 
Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed to the day of redemption." 
Be thankful for the ineffable mercy. Cherish his influence. Im- 
plore his assistance. Depend upon his grace for your personal 
salvation. Pray for his outpouring upon the Church. Pray for 
his outpouring upon the world. And remember that the Father, 
for the sake of his Son, is more ready to give the Holy Spirit 
to them that ask him, than you to give bread to your children. 

And you, ye unconverted, as you value heaven, " quench 
not the Spirit !" It is a painful fact, that he must strive 
with sinners. It is only by conquering that he can save 
them. It is only by overcoming their pride, perverseness, 
selfishness, worldliness, wilfulness, love of sin, hardness of 
heart, and habitual unbelief, that he can " turn them from 
darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." But 
he '^ shall not always strive with men." He strives with 
them as moral agents, and cannot violate their moral agency. 
Incorrigible sin conquers at last the omnipotence of Love 
Divine. Then woe to the guilty — thenceforth for ever hope- 



THE HEAVENLY PARACLETE. 211 

less and undone ! It is recorded of the Jews, that ^' they 
rebelled, and vexed his Holy Spirit ; therefore he was turned 
to be their enemy, and he fought against them/' Appalling 
statement I Terrific warning ! 0, think what it is to have 
your best friend become your enemy — to have the only power 
that can save you — that has vainly sought so long to save 
you — arrayed against your poor soul in irreconcilable and 
eternal hostility — all his love converted into vengeance, all 
his long-suffering inflamed into fury, and all his melting com- 
passion kindled into consuming fire ! 0, think of the abso- 
lute despotism of evil habit, against which all resolution is 
impotent, and all struggling is vain — the consciousness of 
damnation on this side the grave, and the horrors and the 
hopelessness of doom beyond ! And as you dread these, avoid 
that moral apathy, judicial blindness, strong delusion, belief 
of a lie, which so often result from resisting the Holy Grhost ! 



212 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 



XIII.— ANaELIC AaENCY. 

Socrates believed himself constaDtly attended by two in- 
visible beings, whom he called his demons — the one a good 
and friendly spirit, ever aiding him with his counsel : the 
other an evil and hostile spirit, ever seeking his injury. 

This, and more than this, Christian reader, is true of us 
all. The Church of Christ on earth is militant — has been 
militant from the first — will be militant to the last. Every 
disciple is a soldier, assailed by the hosts of hell, and guarded 
by the angels of Grod. We contend with a mightier force than 
that which besieged the prophet in Dothan ; but we have the 
same embattled seraphim for our defence. We are beleaguered 
by myriads of invisible foes; but were our eyes opened, we 
should see the mountain yet radiant with horses and chariots 
of fire. Saint Paul speaks often of the conflict — describes the 
enemy, the panoply, the weapons of our warfare ; and the in- 
spired exile of Patmos saw the triumph, and heard the shout- 
ing of the victors. It is a fearful contest — a struggle in which 
three worlds participate, and perhaps ten thousand sympathize. 
The interests involved are infinite, and the prize to be won is 
incalculably glorious. Header, I would impress you with the 
importance of action, and inspire you with the hope of victory. 
To efi'ect the former, I must describe your enemies : to ac- 
complish the latter, I must show you your allies. 



ANGELIC AGENCY. 213 

I. Comej therij Christian reader, let us climb tlie heights of 
Zion, and reconnoitre the camp of the foe. 

'^Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision'' — deep 
their malice, fixed their purpose, firm their union, strong their 
entrenchments. Look at their legions, and survey their re- 
sources. 

Why speak of wicked men, with all their means and methods 
of opposition ? We have other and deadlier enemies — the my- 
riads of fallen angels. '^ For we wrestle not against flesh and 
blood, but against principalities and powers — against wicked 
spirits in high places — the rulers of the darkness of this 
world." 

The leader of the host is called Satan, the devil, the tempter, 
the deceiver, the seducer, the destroyer, the murderer, the 
wicked one, the old serpent, the great dragon, the unclean 
spirit, the father of lies, the prince of darkness, the god of 
this world, the adversary and accuser of the brethren, and a 
roaring lion going about seeking whom he may devour. 

All this is descriptive of his character and his operations. 
Aware of his own comparative weakness, and the terribleness 
of the Divine anger, he wages determined warfare against the 
Lord, against his gospel, and against the people of his love. 
And is there aught unnatural in his audacity and his malice ? 
Does not the criminal ever hate his judge, and the rebel rage 
against his avenging sovereign ? It might be expected that 
Satan would hate the almighty detector and punisher of his 
crime, and that his rage would be in proportion to the rank 
from which his ascertained guilt has degraded him, the in- 
tenseness of his torture, and the hopelessness of his doom. 
Yerily, it might be expected that an archangel, ruined in 
sight of peers and subalterns, and driven from the abodes of 
the blessed into everlasting exile, would be inflamed with an 
indescribable fierceness and fury of revenge : that ages of bitter 
thought and baffled hate would tend to aggravate the im- 



214 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

pulse, inspiring every feeling of wrong, and quickening every 
faculty of evil, and envenoming the wliole being with a still 
more desperate hostility to Heaven and all his favorite children ; 
and that, under such an influence, the outcast seraph would 
prosecute his reckless career of rebellion, in the very face of 
omnipotent retribution, and even with the full consciousness 
of adding weight to the chain and intenseness to the flame of 
his own avenging destiny. 

Look at the operation of the same principle in humanity. 
How absorbing the passion ! How complete the mastery ! 
How every higher consideration vanishes, and every better 
feeling dies, and love loses its charm, and life loses its value, 
and fear loses its last tremor, and honor loses its restraining 
influence, and interest loses its conservative faculty, and the 
man becomes a tiger, and adds the cunning of the fiend to the 
firceness of the brute, toiling for years upon his single purpose, 
renewing or modifying his plans as often as they are thwarted 
by accident or foiled by sagacity, watching with untiring vi- 
gilance, sacrificing food and rest, seizing every facility to for- 
ward his desperate design, till at length he finds an oppor- 
tunity to wreak his long-cherished vengeance upon the vic- 
tim ! And if such is the human counterpart, what must be 
the force of the passion in so superior a nature — in a fallen 
spirit of such vast intellectual vigor, such keen and compre- 
hensive impulses — a prince among the immortal sons of God, 
expelled from his place in heaven, in chains of darkness, 
damned and irredeemable ! 

Marshalled under this mighty chief, are legions of malig- 
nant angels, still impelled by that spirit which lost them hea- 
ven and hurled them down to hell. They are irreconcilably 
opposed to the government of God, and especially enraged 
against the cause of the Kedeemer and the interest of his re- 
deemed. They know that Christ must conquer and reign for 
ever; yet have they an unresting hostility to his incipient 



ANGELIC AGENCY. 215 

empire; and if they cannot stay the progress of his chariot, 
they will at least line the path of his victorious march, and 
do whatever they can to annoy and afflict his militant follow- 
ers. Against all who espouse the interest of their almighty 
foe they cherish the bitterest envy and hate. They cannot 
bear to see you ascending to the thrones which they have lost. 
Fain would they blot all moral excellence from the universe, 
and involve in misery as hopeless as their own every happy 
creature of Jehovah. 0, what a jubilee of joy it would afford 
them, could they blast your budding hopes of heaven, and 
turn your dawning immortality into the blackness of despair ! 
This is their strenuous and incessant aim. For this they pur- 
sue you through life, and press you to the very gates of death. 
Kindness they cannot exercise — compassion they never feel. 
They showed no quarter to your Captain — they will show no 
quarter to you. If you escape the everlasting chain and the 
unquenchable fire, it will not be from the cessation or the di- 
minution of their malice; but from its utter impotency to 
cope with the almighty love of God, and the unwearied agency 
of holy angels. 

These malignant enemies have many and great advantages ; 
one of which is their superior spiritual nature. Could we 
perceive them by our senses, we might shun or resist them. 
But they are invisible and intangible. They assail us in 
secret, and hurl their fiery darts unseen. Perhaps this place 
is now thronged with demons. Were our eyes and ears 
opened, we might see them '^ setting the battle in array," 
and hear their shouts as they charge upon '^ the sacramental 
host of God's elect.'' As spiritual essences, they have access 
to the mind — can enter into the heart, and dwell there. 
Human persecutors can injure only the body; but these can 
operate upon the understanding, the affections, and the will. 
Therefore, with reference to wrath and kindred passions, we 
are exhorted to '\give no place to the devil." Satan "put it 



216 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

into the heart of Judas'^ to betray the Son of God, and ^^ filled 
the heart" of Ananias and Sapphira " to lie unto the Holy 
Ghost." It is thus the devil and his angels wage against us 
so successful a warfare. It is thus our imaginations are cor- 
rupted, our judgments perverted, our perceptions obscured, 
our moral sense blunted, our evil passions excited, and our 
souls filled with darkness and dismay. 

Their vast knowledge and profound cunning afford them 
further advantage. They are beings of a loftier order, and 
their mental faculties surpass immeasurably those of men. 
Perhaps they are capable of grasping, in one intellectual view, 
more objects than we in a lifetime can imagine. And their 
natural intelligence and skill are improved by an experience 
of at least six thousand years ', and, for aught we know, six 
thousand chiliads more. Eevelation has nowhere given us 
the date of their birth, nor the date of their rebellion. We 
know, however, that they sinned before our first parents, and 
instigated our first parents' sin. They are veterans in crime, 
and trained to the destruction of human souls. The apostle 
speaks of their ^^ wiles," ^Mepths,'' and ^^ devices" — terms 
which imply a shrewdness in their plans, and a subtilty in 
their operations, requiring in the Christian warrior great wis- 
dom and constant watchfulness to detect and defeat. Students 
in mental philosophy from the days of Adam, they under- 
stand, in all their bearings, the laws of suggestion and 
sequence, by which our thoughts and feelings are governed. 
They know our circumstances, our vulnerable points, our 
easily besetting sins. They lay their stratagems with amaz- 
ing skill, and adapt their temptations astonishingly to the out- 
ward conditions and the inward habitudes of those whom they 
would seduce and destroy. They so time and modulate their 
whimpers, that we mistake them for the voice of our own 
thoughts; and so conceal their agency, that, while we fancy 
ourselves floating down the stream of our own free volitions, 



ANGELIC AGENCY. 217 

it is a demon's breath that fills the sail, and a demon's hand 
that holds the helm, steering the bark to ruin ! 

And they are as vigilant as they are intelligent. Certainly, 
they possess not the Divine attribute of ubiquity ; but, pro- 
bably, they can transport themselves from place to place with 
a rapidity to us inconceivable. A stream of electricity makes 
the circuit of the globe in a moment ; and who shall say that 
embodied spirits do not move with equal or even superior 
velocity ? A beam of light travels twelve millions of miles a 
minute ; and who shall say that it is not outtravelled by our 
infernal adversaries ? Who shall assign the time for compass- 
ing the universe, to beings who dart through immeasurable 
fields of ether quick as the transitions of thought ? And who 
knows their powers of perception ? Who knows but that 
they hear the softest whisper from pole to' pole, and see the 
minutest object from world to world ? And they are ever on 
the watch, passing to and fro in the earth by night and by 
day. If you go to the house of God, they are there before 
you. If you enter your closet, you cannot shut them out. 
They attend your path and surround your pillow. Wherever 
you are, whatever you do, they are with you — they observe 
you. 0, it is a frightful thought, that, from the moment of 
our entrance into the world to the moment of our exit, we are 
watched by myriads of malignant eyes invisible to ours — that 
unclean and accursed spirits notice every act, every step, 
every word, every look, every thought, every motive, every 
feeling, every volition, every mental state and movement — 
ready to take advantage of the slightest circumstance to do 
us injury, and effect our overthrow ! 

And their audacity is equal to their vigilance. Vanquished 
on the field of heaven, they shifted the scene of warfare, and 
continued on earth their impious hostility to Jehovah. They 
enter his holiest places, assail his holiest servants, nor hesitate 
to confront the Infinite One himself. No sooner is a pair of 
10 



218 HEADLANDS OP PAITH. 

lovely beings, fresh from the hand of the Creator, and reful- 
gent with the glory of his image, seen walking the groves of 
Eden, than Satan repairs thither, and undertakes their ruin. 
In the days of Job, he comes, among the assembling " sons 
of God," 'Ho present himself before the Lord/' In the vision 
of Zechariah, he stands at the right hand of the high-priest 
in the presence of Jehovah. When the incarnate God 
appears in Bethlehem, he stirs up Herod to seek his life, 
assaults him personally on the mountain, instigates Judas to 
betray him, Peter to deny him, Caiaphas to accuse him, false 
witnesses to testify against him, all Jerusalem to clamor for 
his blood, the Roman procurator to condemn him to the cross, 
and the ruffian soldiery with every circumstance of indignity 
and torture to execute the decree. And time has not dimin- 
ished his audacity, nor softened the temerity of his subordi- 
nates. Deterred by no fear, they accompany the Christian to 
his interview with God, breathe the holy atmosphere of the 
closet, tread the hallowed pavement of the sanctuary, and 
stand by the messenger of Heaven in the pulpit. Unawed 
by the purity and the splendor of guardian angels, they 
obtrude themselves into '' the chamber where the good man 
meets his fate," and battle for the soul of the dying saint 
" quite on the verge of heaven." In the daring impostor of 
Mecca, in the sacrilegious mystagogue of Rome, in the blas- 
phemous infidelity of France, what see we but a superhuman 
hardihood and presumption, which we cannot help attributing 
to the agency — however disguised — of the devil and his ruined 
confederates? Obviously it is their purpose, if possible, to 
circumvent the wisdom of God, and counteract the omnipo- 
tence of his love, and drive the ploughshare of desolation over 
all his fairest works. Swift as lightning, fierce as vengeance, 
and more insatiable than death, they pursue their desperate 
aim, regardless of the gathering storm, and heedless of the 
flames of hell ! 



ANGELIC AGENCY. 219 

And they are beings of terrible power. Astonisbing is 
their agency in ocean, earth, and air. Amazing is their influ- 
ence over the minds, the persons, and the circumstances of 
men. Behold this once fair province of creation, converted 
into a vale of tears — a field of blood — the very lazar-house 
and charnel of the universe : it is a specimen of their dread- 
ful power. See them wielding the elements against the 
'^ perfect man" of Uz, smiting him with a sore disease, and 
moving the hearts of men to do him harm. Notice that 
" daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these 
eighteen years'^ — *' bowed together so that she cannot lift up 
herself." Observe ''all who are oppressed of the devil" — 
"tormented with divers diseases" — coming to Christ to be 
healed : one "lame," another "leprous," another "paralytic," 
another " both blind and dumb." "Witness that young man, 
in whom an evil spirit has long held his residence; casting 
him often into the fire, and into the water; and when com- 
manded to come out, rending his victim, and throwing him 
" foaming" upon the ground. Mark the demoniac of Gadara, 
" dwelling among the tombs, crying and cutting himself with 
stones ;" so strong in his agony, that no man can bind him ; 
so fierce and terrible, that none dares approach, unprotected, his 
dismal abode. Such cases were common in Judea in the 
days of the Son of God — fiends, as if wrought up to the 
utmost fury of desperation by the advent of their Heavenly 
Conqueror, actually incorporating with men : turning their 
bodies into living tombs ; engrossing and demonizing all their 
mental faculties; making human hearts the fuel of their own 
infernal passions, and human senses and organs the slaves of 
their own rampant impiety; till the poor victims, held as 
hostages to the power of evil, anticipated eternal torments in 
time, and realized an incipient hell upon earth. No wonder 
these accursed beings are called " principalities and magistra- 
cies,^' and designated by other titles significant of so dread a 



220 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

potency. Were it not for the restraining hand of God, and 
the guardian care of angels, we should have still more terrible 
proofs of their power. Who knows how soon the earth might 
be wrapped in dissolving flames, and the harmony of the 
spheres rolled back into primeval chaos, and the universe 
itself converted into one vast hell, throughout whose bound- 
lessness nothing should be seen but horror — nothing heard 
but wailing — nothing known but woe ! 

And their activity is incessant, and their energy untiring. 
We act through physical organism, and soon become fatigued. 
But our fatigues are those of the body, not of the mind. 
Demons, not invested as we are with gross material frames, 
feel nothing of their attendant infirmities. Spirit is not sub- 
ject to the laws of flesh and blood. It is not in the nature 
of spirit to exhaust itself by exertion. Its activity is untiring 
and eternal. Our dreadful foes, tenanting no tabernacles of 
clay, move with the freedom of thought, and perform the 
most astonishing things with an ease still more astonishing. 
They know nothing of our weary, halting, painful efi"ort. A 
single impulse of thought may bear them a thousand 
leagues. A single wave of their wings may lift them from 
world to world. They have maintained a constant campaign 
against the Almighty Sovereign and all his faithful subjects 
ever since they first reared the standard of revolt in heaven ; 
are as active and vigorous now as when, at the gates of Para- 
dise, they set up their shout of triumph over a captured world; 
and shall never relax their efi'orts, nor lose aught of their en- 
ergy, till He, whose single arm once routed them on Calvary, 
shall return, with the battalions of heaven, to bind all his 
adversaries in the bottomless pit — as strong to suffer as they 
are to sin ! 

And what arithmetic shall calculate their numbers ? Doubt- 
less, there are more demons than men. When Immanuel 
sojourned in Palestine, their prince could spare seven to tor- 



ANGELIC AGENCY. 221 

ment one poor sinner, and in the bosom of another were deni- 
zened a legion. Satan is expressly styled '^ the deceiver of 
the whole world." All men are more or less subject to his 
influence; and the heathen nations, constituting three-fourths 
of the human race, seem entirely under his control. But as 
his power, though great, is limited — as he is a finite being, and 
cannot personally operate such an infinite variety of mischief 
all over the earth — he must exercise this influence, and main- 
tain this dominion, chiefly, through subordinate agencies ; 
and these agencies, to act in so many places, on so many sub- 
jects, at the same time — ^and that habitually and constantly, 
and in manners so various, and for ends so manifold — must 
be an innumerable host. 

** From thrones of glory driven, 
By flaming vengeance hurled, 
They throng the air, and darken heaven, 
And rule this lower world." 

Reckon the earth's population at ten hundred millions, and 
assign a score of evil spirits to every human soul, and you 
have an army of twenty billions of fiends — a multitude to 
which the hosts of Xerxes, Alexander, and Semiramis were 
as the few particles in the hour-glass to all the sands of Saha- 
ra — to which the teeming myriads that marched to the rescue 
of the holy sepulchre, and the marshalled nations that rushed 
into the Crimean whirlpool of blood, are as the dew-spangles 
on a rose-leaf to all the waters of the ocean-world ! And this 
frightful force — if it is not over-estimated — we have reason to 
believe is employed chiefly against the Church of God. 
Among pagans, papists, Mohammedans, and the subjects of 
other superstitions, with all the profligate and the prayerless 
of Christendom, they maintain an easy empire. The wicked 
are Satan's willing thralls, and require comparatively little 
effort to keep them in subordination. ApoUyon draws off his 



222 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

principal forces to ^' compass the camp of the saints/' Around 
every believer, " in close and firm array/' stand '^ legions of 
wily fiends/' The fact that they are impalpable to sense is 
no argument against the reality of their presence. Could we 
but see them ! The Persian host, with its steel-clad cavalry 
of a hundred and twenty thousand, its eighteen hundred 
scythed chariots, and its seven hundred elephants, each with 
his tower of archers — nay, all the marshalled myriads of anti- 
quity, with all their terrible enginery, and the ten-fold more 
terrible agencies of modern warfare, and the superhuman 
machinery of Grecian epic in addition — would be only a 
child's plaything in the comparison ! 

Such are the Christian's foes : do you wonder at the Chris- 
tian's fears ? How can the lamb cope with the lion, or the 
dove wrestle with the eagle ? If Satan conquered our first 
parents in the strength of their original purity, how shall we 
resist his legions, with our fallen, sinful, enervated nature? 
How shall we repel the assailants without, while we have so 
many traitors within ? How shall we secure the magazine, 
full of combustibles, upon which showers of fiery shafts are 
ever falling ? Have not multitudes already been foiled and 
captured by our foes ? And many of them were among the 
wisest and best of our brethren. Witness the sinful anger of 
Moses, and the shameful idolatry of Aaron; the murderous 
lechery of David, and the deplorable apostasy of Solomon; 
Peter's profane denial of his Lord, and Demas's defection for 
the love of this present world. Ah, what a lesson of fear is 
the record of their fall ! The slain are innumerable : the 
valley of vision is full of bones ; and our hearts die within 
us, as we survey the dread Aceldama. And 0, how often have 
we ourselves sufi'ered from the superior sagacity and infernal 
valor of our foes ! No wonder we fear our former captors, 
and cry out, with the prophet's servant : "Alas, my master ! 
how shall we do ?" 



ANGELIC AGENCY. 223 

II. But after this appalling survey of our enemies, let us 
return and take a view of our allies. " Fear not, for they that 
be with us are more than they that be with them.''* 

The Sadducees said there was "neither angel nor spirit." 
There are many modern Sadducees ; but they are obliged to 
repudiate or pervert much of the word of Grod. The Scrip- 
tures everywhere speak of angels as real intelligences. Two 
of them — Gabriel and Michael — are mentioned expressly by 
name. They are constantly described as personal subsistences, 
possessed of understanding and sympathy, exercising volition 
and energy, praising God, conversing with men, and exhibit- 
ing all the essential attributes of rational agents. They com- 
municated the mind of the Lord to the patriarchs and the 
prophets. They led Lot and his daughters out of Sodom ; 
met Jacob in his return from Padan-aram, charioted Elijah over 
the everlasting hills, defended Elisha against the host of Ben- 
hadad, announced to the shepherds the advent of the Mes- 
siah, ascended and descended upon the Son of man, minis- 
tered to him after his temptation in the wilderness, strength- 
ened him in the mysterious agony of the garden, appeared at 
his resurrection, sat in his empty sepulchre, and accompanied 
his return to heaven. And still they encompass the saints, 
as with horses and chariots of fire. ''Are they not all min- 
istering spirits, sent forth to minister to them that shall be 
heirs of salvation V 

Why, then, should we fear what man can do unto us ? An- 
gels are superior to man in his very best estate. Even in 
Paradise, while in his sinlessness he walked and talked with 
God, he was " a little lower than the angels." How much 
inferior now, degraded from his original rank in creation, and 
enervated by the deadly influence of evil ! And shall we 
fear before a few despicable worms, when we know that we 
are surrounded by the armed seraphim ? Let them smite : 

* 2 Kings vi. 16. 



224 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

an angel's arm is lifted for our shield. Let them imprison : 
an angel's tread shakes the iron bars asunder. Let them kill 
the body : an angel's wing wafts the soul away to God. 

And why dread we the vengeance of infernal spirits ? Our 
heavenly protectors are greater even than they. We meet 
the superiority of our enemies with the transcendent supe- 
riority of our allies. If the former are dreadful to us, the 
latter are more dreadful to them. And 0, it is bliss to think 
that, beleaguered as we are by foes, we are constantly guarded 
by such glorious beings — that immortal troops, in no earthly 
armor, are our companions in the march, and our helpers in 
the battle — that many, if not most, of the blessings which 
fall upon us with the copiousness of the rain, and the con- 
stancy of the dew, are scattered by hands that are often lifted 
in adoration before the throne of God ! 

We mentioned the deadly hate of demons. Far more in- 
tense is the love of holy angels. The Divine providence, and 
the Divine purposes, constitute the perpetual theme of their 
study ; and as these are most clearly illustrated in the history 
of the saints, it is around them especially that angelic interest 
clusters, and for them especially angelic sympathies are moved. 
The perfections of the Divine character, and the glory of the 
Divine government, constitute the element of their being, 
and the sunlight of their joy; and as the various experiences 
of the saints — their alternate trials and triumphs — form the 
mirror in which these are reflected, it is here chiefly that 
they fix their delighted gaze, and here they exert their bene- 
volent agency. Retaining all the original nobleness of their 
nature, those blessed beings regard the redeemed as their 
younger brethren — the latest-born of the great family of God 
— governed by the same principles, inspired with the same 
aff"ections, and destined to the same glory. They look upon 
our interests as theirs, and hear in our songs the foint echoes 
of their own. There is an alliance, a congeniality, a divine 



ANGELIC AGENCY. 225 

identity of feeling. Once there was alienation and enmity : 
their holiness could not coalesce with our sinfulness. But 
now ^^we are brought nigh by the blood of Christ/' and the 
unfallen and the ransomed blend in one blessed society. They 
rejoice over us as long-lost jewels found — as long-lamented 
prodigals returned. They know what it cost Heaven to re- 
deem us, and prize us as the purchase of Emmanuel's blood. 
Love spreads their wings and bares their arms in our behalf. 
Love renders their ministration a duty of delight. They love 
us more than demons hate us ; and no stoop is too low, and 
no flight too far, and no effort too arduous, that can aid the 
consummation of our triumph over the malicious hosts of hell. 
We spoke of our foes as spiritual beings, warring against 
us in secret. Of our heavenly protectors it is said : " He 
maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire." 
Many of the Christian fathers supposed them possessed of 
subtile, ethereal bodies ; approximating spirituality, but still 
material. This view, however, is averse to the representa- 
tions of Scripture, in which angels are spoken of as purely 
spiritual beings, without any material investiture, however 
attenuated and transcendental. Like our enemies, they 
are invisible and intangible ; and perhaps they can con- 
ceal their movements even from demons, as demons theirs 
from men. Unseen, they attend us in our solitudes, and 
mingle in our solemn assemblies. Whenever necessary, they 
can ^^ take shape from the vacant air," and reveal themselves 
to vision. This seems to be a peculiar faculty of theirs. We 
know not that it is predicated, anywhere in Scripture, of the 
devil and his angels. Satan has often transformed himself into 
an angel of light ; but when into the semblance of humanity ? 
And as spiritual agents, good angels have immediate access 
to the soul. How could they rejoice over the repentant sin- 
ner, unless they knew the gracious process going on within 
him ? They perceive our mental states and exercises ; sym- 
10* 



226 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

pathize with our loves, and joys, and hopes ; and perhaps are 
capable of communicating or modifying our ideas, and convey- 
ing important and influential truth into the mind, in a manner 
and with a facility of which we have no conception. As holy 
beings, they can suggest 'none but holy thoughts, and inspire 
none but holy feelings 3 and whatever of either they impart 
to ours, is worthy of an angel's bosom. As servants of God, 
delighting to do his will, they are only the agents he employs 
to teach us the knowledge we need, and, in subordination to 
a mightier agency, to give the impulses which shall secure 
our triumph. 

We reminded you of the intelligence of fallen angels. Far 
greater must be the intelligence of the unfallen. They are 
represented as being " full of eyes behind and before. '^ Eyes 
indicate knowledge — eyes behind, knowledge of the past — 
eyes before, knowledge of the future — full of eyes, all know- 
ledge, all intelligence. The spirit of prophecy seems to be a 
natural endowment of angelic intellect. An angel showed 
Daniel ''that which was noted in the Scripture of truth," 
and informed him *' what should befall his people in the latter 
day." Angels may be able to read all our future history, and 
trace the events of coming years down to the end of time ; 
at least, their intelligence is vastly superior to that of our 
enemies. Demons may err, for they have no wisdom but 
their own to guide them ; but the spirits of heaven are infal- 
lible, because they are directed by the infinite wisdom of Grod. 
The former have their perceptions obscured, and their judg- 
ments perverted, by sin ; but the latter, having never sinned, 
retain all their original vigor of thought, clearness of under- 
standing, accuracy of comparison, and correctness of conclu- 
sion. And if evil spirits improve their mental powers by 
exercise and experience, much more the spirits of light and 
love, who know no moral impediment to their intellectual 
progress. 



ANGELIC AGENCY. 227 

We adverted to the vigilance of demons. What vigilance 
can equal that of angels ? Christ has committed his saints to 
their guardianship, and they love to watch the fold. " He 
shall give his angels charge concerning thee, to keep thee in 
all thy ways ; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest 
at an}'' time thou dash thy foot against a stone." For this 
they descend from heaven, and patrol the earth by night and 
by day. They are ever faithful to their trust. They never 
forget their charge, nor slumber upon their posts. They line 
our path, and environ our pillow ; watch our going out, and 
guard our coming in ; prevent a thousand accidents, avert a 
thousand evils, and wall us in with shields of heavenly proof. 
They are darting about us, like the beams of light. They 
" are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the 
earth.'' No power of evil can avoid their scrutiny. Wher- 
ever a demon lurks, an angel watches. 

We described the audacity of fiends. Compare with it 
the courage of angels. What menace can daunt, what vio- 
lence can conquer, the glorious sons of immortality ? With 
full confidence in their cause, their Commander, and their 
own superior might, they fear no power beneath the throne 
of God. To execute their Sovereign's mandates, and aid 
his militant saints, they would march unshrinking through 
showers of burning worlds. They never yet quailed before 
the cohorts of hell, nor fled from her terrible battalions. 
What was the wall of Babylon, three hundred and fifty feet 
high, and eighty-seven feet thick, with all its towers of marble 
and gates of brass, in comparison with the circumvallation of 
angels environing the camp of the faithful, more impregnable 
than '' the mountains round about Jerusalem ?" Demons 
might more easily pluck up the earth's foundations, than 
frighten from their posts these glorious warriors of God. 

We said our enemies were beings of terrible power. Our 
allies are called '^mighty angels," and ^'angels that excel in 



228 HEADLANDS OT FAITH. 

strength." Artists have represented them as slender girls, 
with flowing ringlets, and feathered wings. Very different is 
their portraiture in the word of Grod. Manoah's wife de- 
scribed the face of one she saw as ^'exceeding terrible." 
Ezekiel, Daniel, and John, fainted in their presence. In 
Isaiah's vision, the posts of the doors tremble at the sound of 
their voice, as they cry one to another. In the Apocalypse, 
their chorus round about the throne is *' as the noise of many 
waters and mighty thunderings ;" and we see them waging 
successful war in heaven "against the dragon and his angels," 
and casting them out for ever. They brought the fire-storm 
upon Sodom, slew all the first-born of Egypt, and smote the 
Assyrian at the gate of Jerusalem. Not Pharaoh, nor Senna- 
cherib, nor Belshazzar, nor Herod, could stand before these 
mighty agents of God. An angel sustained the Saviour in an 
agony which might have annihilated a world. An angel 
broke the seal of his sepulchre, and rolled away the granite 
barrier from its portal ; " and for fear of him the keepers did 
shake, and became as dead men." In the days of the apostles, 
fetters fell asunder at their touch, and brazen gates flew open 
at their approach. At the last day, they shall go forth to 
gather the elect from the four winds to the throne of the de- 
scending Judge, and execute conclusive vengeance upon the 
multitude of his enemies. 

We represented our foes as indefatigable in effort. So also 
arc the angels of Grod. Their immortal faculties can never 
tire. Their delightful employment can never lose its zest. 
They thronged Emmanuel's standard in the very commence^ 
ment of the campaign, and shall follow the Captain of our 
salvation till the last enemy of his reign is vanquished. Hav- 
ing undertaken the guardianship of the saints, they shall 
never forbear their sympathy, they shall never relax theii 
efforts, till all are safe in Paradise. They accompany the 
believer into the valley of the shadow of death, conduct him 



ANGELIC AGENCY. 229 

securely through the last peril, and compass him about witk 
songs of deliverance. They rejoice to see the long-folded 
wing essaying its hitherto unconscious freedom in the sun- 
light of immortality. They stand at every gate of the hea- 
venly Jerusalem, to keep it open night and day. They wait to 
welcome home the last victor, and see the last mansion occu- 
pied by its redeemed denizen. They watch the gradual 
accumulation of the " great multitude that no man can num- 
ber,'^ till they shall behold the nations of the saved clustering 
in triumph upon the everlasting hills. Then will their 
benevolent satisfaction attain its acme, and the completed 
work will be the consummated reward. We know not how 
many centuries this great struggle may continue, or in how 
few days its final fortunes may transpire ; but we know that, 
through all its vicissitudes, the angelic legions shall be strong 
and swift to do the will of God, and help our human feeble- 
ness against our mighty foes ; and when, at last, the signal 
of victory shall wave over the field of conflict, and Christ 
shall come to gather up the spoil, they shall go forth to sum- 
mon the holy sleepers to the triumph, as joyously as they 
went forth to welcome the solar system into being ! 

And what though fallen spirits are an innumerable host ? 
Are not the unfallen an immense majority ? Did the revolt 
of Satan, with his legions, depopulate the city of God ? or did 
it leave myriads still in their loyalty and purity, to maintain 
his cause throughout the universe, and defend his future 
Church on earth ? ^' The angel of the Lord encampeth round 
about them that fear him, and delivereth them" — not a soli- 
tary angel, but an angelic chieftain with his forces. ^' The 
chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of 
angels ; the Lord is in the midst of thera, as in Sinai, in the 
holy place." These are the chariots at the noise of which 
the Syrian army fled, leaving their camp to the quiet posses- 
sion of Israel — the chariots with which the mountain teemed 



230 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

and flashed around Elisha — the chariots in which Elijah 
ascended to God. Enoch prophesied, saying : ^^ Behold, the 
Lord Cometh with myriads of his holy ones.'' Jacob, in his 
journey, met a troop of angels, and called them '^ God's host.'' 
Daniel saw ^^ the Ancient of days" upon his throne : " thou- 
sand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times 
ten thousand stood before him." Saint John, in the Revela- 
tion, ^' beheld, and heard the voice of many angels round 
about the throne, and the number of them was ten thousand 
times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands." Christ 
told Peter that he could call to his aid ^' twelve legions of 
angels" — eighty-four thousand. Yet these probably would 
have constituted comparatively but a small detachment of 
the troops of God. Bildad asks, '^Is there any number of 
his armies ?" Paul declares, ^^ Ye are come to an innumer- 
able company of angels." How shall we estimate the myriads 
of our allies ? The earth, with its ten hundred millions of 
human inhabitants, is only a sand-grain in the universe. The 
milky way that spans our firmament is but a cluster of count- 
less spheres, every one of which is evidently self-luminous, 
and probably the dispenser of light to a planetary system like 
our own. The telescope reveals to us more than three thou- 
sand such clusters. And what are these teeming suns, with 
their rotary systems of dependent worlds ? Deserts all, and 
unpeopled ? Are there no eyes to behold their scenes of 
celestial beauty — no wings to soar through those immeasur- 
able fields of splendor ? Who dare say that they are not the 
mansions of unfallen blessedness ? Who dare say that they 
are not swarming with sinless and immortal life ? Who dares 
say that angels descend not from every sphere, to guard the 
path of our pilgrimage, and aid us in our contest with the 
powers of darkness ? 0, multiply the drops of the sea by the 
sands of the shore, the blades of the field by the leaves of the 
forest, the dew-gems of morning by the sunbeams of noontide, 



ANGELIC AGENCY. 231 

but still you cannot reach the number of your allies ! " Fear 
not, for more are they that be with us than they that be with 
them." 

Behold, my brethren, the importance of faith to allay our 
fears. Children are apt to be afraid by night, not because 
there is danger, but only because it is dark. The prophet's 
servant trembled, when he saw the Syrian host at the gate of 
Dothan, and knew not that the angels of God encompassed 
the city as a wall of fire ; but when his eyes were opened in 
answer to the prophet's prayer, and he saw mountain and sky 
teeming with the cavalry and artillery of heaven, what a 
delightful sense of security must have taken possession of his 
soul ! And we, in our ignorance and unbelief, often quail 
before our enemies, and are ready to yield to despair; but 
had we always a lively apprehension of the presence and 
agency of our angel guardians — could we behold the glorious 
reinforcements which are sent in every emergency from the 
New Jerusalem — we should take up the song of the Psalmist — 
'' Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall 
not fear!" and with a joyful confidence, inspiring every 
heart, and nerving every hand, the Church militant would 
march through the wilderness, with a voice of jubilee issuing 
from all her tribes, like the anthem of the resurrection ! 



232 HEADLANDS OS FAITH. 



XIV.— THE HUMAN HEAKT. 

In the fifth century arose Pelagius and Celestius, denying 
that we inherit from Adam a constitutional depravity, teaching 
that we are born as pure as our first father was created, and 
are capable of pleasing God by our own natural powers, with- 
out any special aid or impulse of the Holy Spirit. This 
doctrine, variously modified, has descended to the present 
day ; and is now held, in our own country, by several sects 
calling themselves Christians. The English Reformers re- 
garded it as a pernicious heresy, against which they felt bound 
to record their solemn protest ; and this protest, substantially, 
all the orthodox Churches of Protestant Christendom have 
incorporated in their creeds. 

The question is certainly one of great importance. Chris- 
tianity presents itself to us as a remedial economy ; and our 
estimate of the remedy must correspond to our estimate of 
the disease. If we think lightly of human guilt and corrup- 
tion, we shall think lightly also of the atoning Sacrifice and 
the renovating Spirit. If we regard our sinfulness as of 
slight inveteracy, we shall certainly regard the gospel as. of 
little value. It is well, therefore, that we understand the 
malady of our constitution and the misery of our condition, 
that thus we may be prepared to lay hold on the hope which 
is set before us in the mediation of Christ and the merciful 
help of the Holy Spirit. We shall endeavor to show that 
man is naturally corrupt and sinful, ^^very far gone from 



THE HUMAN HEART. 233 

original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil? 
and that continually/' 

I. But we must define the doctrine before we proceed to 
its proof. What, then, is that native depravity of which we 
speak ? What is the true character and state of the unre- 
newed heart ? 

The Holy Scriptures teach us that Adam was the federal 
representative of his race \ that his moral acts involved our 
moral destinies ; that by one man's disobedience many were 
made sinners ; that the virus of his depravity has descended 
through all the millions of his posterity, in consequence of 
which every man is naturally destitute of good, and constantly 
inclined to evil. 

This native corruption is sometimes called '^original sin." 
The term is a metonymy, the cause being put for the effect. 
" Sin is the transgression of the law." Literally, original sin 
is the transgression of our first parents. Our inherent de- 
pravity is the legitimate consequence. 

Sometimes we use the term " total depravity." This is 
liable to be mistaken, and ought to be carefully guarded. 
By total depravity, we mean an utter destitution and incapa- 
bility, by nature, of moral virtue. We do not mean that 
there is not, and cannot be, any moral virtue in man ; but 
we mean that there is none by nature, and can be none but 
by grace. 

This inherent depravity is often spoken of as universal. 
By this expression it is not intended that all are equally 
guilty, or that all possess the same evil propensities in the 
same degree. The Scriptures refer to different degrees of 
punishment; and if punishment is proportionate to guilt, 
there must be different degrees of guilt. In hell all will be 
totally depraved, but all will not be equally guilty. Men 
appear to differ as much in their moral dispositions as in their 



234 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

mental faculties. Some are mild, tender, and generous; 
while others are supremely selfish and vindictive. Some dis- 
play much candor, benevolence, and integrity ; while others 
seem quite destitute of these amiable qualities. A great 
variety of temper may often be met with among a number of 
children educated under the same domestic influences. 

What, then, is the doctrine of native depravity ? Does it 
imply the possession of every possible evil in full development 
and exercise ? Certainly not. This were naturally impossible. 
Some vices are incompatible with others ; as ambition with 
indolence, and covetousness with prodigality. One evil prin- 
ciple may hold another in check. Every unregenerate man 
has his dominant sin; and perhaps it keeps down several 
others, which else would assert the throne. 

Nor does it imply that men are as bad as they can be. 
They might break over all the restraints of religion and 
society in their headlong career of crime. The habit of evil 
increases the capacity of evil. There is a growth in vice, as 
in virtue. Evil men and seducers naturally wax worse and 
worse ; and it is philosophical to suppose that the finally im- 
penitent will be eternally progressing in sin. 

Nor does it imply a destitution of conscience. Every man 
has a conscience. It is a part of our moral constitution. 
Without a conscience, you could not feel yourself a sinner. 
In proportion to the power of conscience is the sinner's sense 
of guilt. Conscience must exist in hell : this is the undying 
worm and the unquenchable fire ; yet in hell depravity will 
be hopeless. 

Nor does it imply an utter want of Divine influence. God 
can impart his Holy Spirit to a nature that is wholly corrupt ; 
and there is ample proof of its impartation, in some measure, 
to unconverted and impenitent men. Otherwise, none could 
ever repent, none could ever be renewed. "In me, that is, 
in my flesh" — in my fallen nature — "dwellcth no good 



THE HUMAN HEART. 235 

thing." Every virtuous desire, purpose, principle, is the 
product of the grace of God. 

Nor does it imply the privation of moral agency. By moral 
agency we mean freedom to obey or disobey law. All that is 
necessary to such freedom men certainly possess. It was lost 
in Adam, but is restored in Christ. If man were not a moral 
agent, he could not sin, and would not be responsible for his 
conduct. If moral agency were destroyed by total depravity, 
it must be impaired by partial depravity ; and the palpable 
contradiction would follow, that just so far as a man is de- 
praved, so far he is sinless, because incapable of sinning. 

The Bible doctrine of man's original corruption is the fol- 
lowing : — No man by nature loves God, or delights in his ser- 
vice. The natural man lives to himself. God is not in all 
his thoughts. There is no fear of God before his eyes, no 
practical recognition of his authority, no grateful acknowledg- 
ment of his goodness. His motives are supremely selfish, his 
pursuits sensual, his tempers impious, his ambitions unholy, 
his imaginations vain, except in so far as the evil of his na- 
ture is restrained, and his character modified, by the grace of 
God. An angel obeys God from inclination, from the spon- 
taneous impulse of his own nature ', but man, left to himself 
— no restraining influence, no Divine assistance, no dread of 
punishment, no hope of reward — would be wholly devoid of 
good, and wholly devoted to evil. '' Yea, also, the heart of 
the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart 
while they live, and after that they go to the dead.''* 

II. This is the doctrine which we now jproceed to prove — 
first, from the Holy Scriptures; and secondly , from human 
observation and experience. 

1. The Holy Scriptures teach this doctrine, both by expli- 
cit statement, and by obvious implication. 

* Eccl. ix. 9. 



236 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

Grod created man in his own image, after his likeness. This 
image and likeness consisted in righteousness and true holi- 
ness. But man lost the impress, for he became a sinner. 
Then it is said, ^^Adam begat a son in his own image, after 
his likeness, and called his name Seth.''"'' Now this image 
and likeness could not be the original in which man was cre- 
ated. The parent could not transmit a quality which he did 
not possess. The corrupt tree could not produce good fruit. 
The sinner could not beget a saint. ^^ Who can bring a clean 
thing out of an unclean ? Not one." ^' What is man, that 
he should be clean ; and he that is born of woman, that he 
should be righteous ?" That the offspring of sinful parents 
should be born sinless, is a natural impossibility. A demon 
might as well beget an angel. Seth was the sad inheritor of 
Adam's sinfulness ; and has doubtless transmitted to all his 
posterity what he inherited from the great progenitor. 

Just before the flood, '^ God saw that the wickednes of man 
was great upon the earth, and that every imagination of the 
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."f An appall- 
ing description of the universality and the inveteracy of hu- 
man corruption. The heart, the thoughts of the heart, the 
imagination of the thoughts, every imagination was evil, was 
only evil, was only evil continually. And this was not the 
character merely of a few ; for the term man includes the 
whole race; and lest its extension should be mistaken, it is 
added — "All flesh had corrupted his way," and " the earth 
was filled with violence." 

Immediately after the flood, God declares that " the imagin- 
ation of man's heart is evil from his youth. "J This also 
afl&rms the universality of human degeneracy. The term em- 
braces all, and the words were spoken when none but Noah 
and his family were living upon the earth. And this univer- 

* Gen. V. 8. f Gen. vi. 5. ^ Gen. viii. 21. 



THE HUMAN HEART, 237 

sal degeneracy is represented as inherent and innate — not the 
result of education and pernicious example, but of a natural 
inclination to sin, as the earliest development of character. 
And with this agrees the Psalmist — '^The wicked go astray 
as soon as they are born ;" and the Preacher — '' The heart of 
the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil /^ and the Pro- 
phet — " Behold, ye walk every one after the imagination of 
his evil heart." 

More than seventeen hundred years later, Jeremiah wrote : 
— " The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately 
wicked: who can know it?''* Here again is universal and 
total depravity. The description is corroborated by the Great 
Teacher, six hundred and forty years afterward : — " Out of 
the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornica- 
tions, thefts, false witness, blasphemies : all these things come 
from within, and defile the man.""}" As Mr. Watson observes, 
this could not be true if man were naturally pure. All these 
things would come from without, and not from within. The 
heart must be corrupted by outward circumstances, before it 
could be a corrupter. 

According to Saint Paul, the above scriptures furnish a 
true picture of the Jewish as well as the Gentile heart. He 
quotes from the fourteenth Psalm, to prove the universality 
of innate depravity ; and to this source he attributes all the 
actual wickedness of men : — '' What, then ? Are we better 
than they ? No : in no wise ; for we have before proved both 
Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin, as it is writ- 
ten. There is none righteous — no, not one : there is none 
that understandeth : there is none that seeketh after God : 
they are all gone out of the way : they are together become 
unprofitable : there is none that doeth good — no, not one : 
their throat is an open sepulchre : with their tongues they 

* Jer. xvii. 9. f Matt. xv. 19. 



238 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

have used deceit : the poison of asps is under their lips : 
whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness : their feet are 
swift to shed blood : destruction and misery are in their ways ; 
and the way of peace have they not known : there is no fear 
of Grod before their eyes. Now we know/^ adds the apostle, 
'^ that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are 
under the law ; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the 
world may become guilty before God.'' Then he goes on to 
argue that ^' by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be 
justified in his sight;" and assigns as a reason, that "all have 
sinned, and come short of the glory of God."* 

These passages teach the doctrine of native depravity by 
explicit statement. Others teach it by obvious implication, 
and the evidence is equally conclusive. 

Satan is called " the god of this world," and it is said 
that ^^ the whole world lieth in the wicked one." We under- 
stand these expressions to refer to an intelligent personal 
agent, by whom the great mass of mankind are enslaved. But 
admit, as some imagine, that Paul and John speak only of a 
principle of evil ; and the inevitable conclusion follows, that 
man is under the influence of an evil principle, which is even 
worse than the domination of an evil agent. 

" Christ came into the world to save sinners " — " to seek 
and to save that which was lost." It is a safe rule to estimate 
the extent of an evil by the provision made for its remedy. 
On this principle the apostle argues, — " If Christ died for all, 
then were all dead." This death could be no other than a 
spiritual — the alienation of the soul from God. The entire 
scheme of the gospel proceeds on the supposition of man's 
native depravity ; and to deny this doctrine, as argued by 
Doctor Chalmers, is to repudiate the whole system of Christi- 
anity. 

* Rom. iii. 9-19, 23. 



THE HUMAN HEART. 239 

'^As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men 
to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free 
gift came upon all men unto justification of life ; for as by 
one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the 
obedience of one shall many be made righteous."* Here, and 
in the following verses, we have a contrast between Adam and 
Christ — the evils in which we are involved by the former, and 
the blessings to which we are restored by the latter. But if 
the blessings are spiritual, so also must be the evils ; else 
there is no ground for the contrast. Christ restores what 
Adam lost. Unless we admit the doctrine of the fall and 
consequent corruption of our race, there is no force in the 
passage. 

In the epistle to the Romans,f Paul describes a contest 
between the flesh and the Spirit, and illustrates it by a refer- 
ence to his own experience previous to his conversion. He 
speaks of himself as '' carnal, sold under sin'' — doing that 
which he allowed not, and hating that which he did — reason 
and conscience always on the side of right, but the flesh lust- 
ing against the spirit, and bringing him into captivity to the 
law of sin. Then he exclaims, '^ wretched man that I am ! 
who shall deliver me from the body of this death V 

Nor less conclusive are all those passages which speak of 
the nature and the necessity of regeneration. Christ said to 
Nicodemus : '^ Except a man be born again, he cannot see 
the kingdom of God : that which is born of the flesh is flesh, 
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit : marvel not that 
I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. "J The apostle 
draws an interesting contrast between the saint and the sin- 
ner.§ The one is '' after the flesh," and the other is " after 
the Spirit." The one is " carnally-minded," which '^ is 

* Rom, V. 18, 19. f Rom. vii. 14-24. 

X John iii. 3, 6, 7. I Rom. viii. 5-10. 



240 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

death;" the other is ^^spiritually-minded/' which ^' is life and 
peace." And the difference is ascribed entirely to the renew- 
ing grace of God. In another place* he describes this change 
as a quickening, a resurrection, a new creation in Christ Jesus. 
In short, the New Testament constantly opposes to each other 
'Uhe flesh" and ''the Spirit"--'Hhe lusts of men," and 
"the will of God"— "the things that be of men," and "the 
things that be of God" — " the old man which is corrupt accord- 
ing to the deceitful lusts," and the new man which after God 
is "created in righteousness and true holiness." All these 
representations are irreconcilable with the notion of man's 
native purity ; and, in connection with the foregoing scrip- 
tures, abundantly confirm the declaration of the royal Preach- 
er : — " Yea, also, the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, 
and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that 
they go to the dead." 

2. Let us now contemplate the actual state of our world, 
and the manifest developments of human character, and see 
whether these teachings of the Bible are corroborated by facts 
in the observation and experience of mankind. 

Our dependence upon God is absolute and universal. Our 
existence itself is not more truly his gift, than all that ren- 
ders existence desirable. To his goodness we are indebted 
for the air we breathe, the food we eat, the raiment we wear, 
the health and vigor of our bodies, the mental powers whose 
exercise affords us so much pleasure, the friends and relations 
whose love constitutes so large a share of our happiness, 
summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, sunshine and 
shower, the joy of our activity, and the tranquillity of our 
repose — all that sustains the system, pleases the palate, gra- 
tifies the ear, fascinates the eye, or yields satisfaction to the 
soul. And how are men affected by all this munificence and 
bounty? Is our gratitude always commensurate with our 

* Eph. ii. 1-7. 



THE HUMAN HEART. 241 

benefits ? Do we constantly acknowledge God in his gifts ? 
Do we habitually attribute all to the Divine goodness ? Are 
the most wealthy and prosperous apt to be the most thankful 
and devout ? Are those who feel no want and suffer no ad- 
versity commonly the most forward to praise the Supreme 
Benefactor ? Alas, the contrary ! God is forgotten in the 
enjoyment of his gifts. All is ascribed to chance, to fortune, 
or to human prudence and industry. Gratitude diminishes as 
obligation increases ; and the most favored of Providence are 
the most irreligious and insensible of men. 

But God has bestowed one greater gift — greater than any — 
greater than all. Had he given us all the wealth of the 
world — had he parcelled out among us the planetary orbs — 
had he bequeathed each of us a sun, with all his system of 
dependent spheres — had he constituted every one the proprie- 
tor of a whole nebul96 of stars, each star the centre of a 
resplendent circumvolving host — it would have been ^'less 
than nothing and vanity'^ in comparison with this ^' unspeak- 
able gift." *^ God so loved the world, that he gave his only- 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish, but have eternal life." Jehovah's Fellow became in- 
carnate, and died for the redemption of his enemies. One 
would think this were enough to convert every human soul 
into a seraph, and every kuman utterance into a song. What 
is the fact ? Does the heart bound with joy, and burst with 
praise, at the announcement of " so great salvation ?" Alas ! 
it is heard with indifference, if not with scorn. There is 
nothing else to which men show such apathy, from which 
they often turn with such disdain. The proffer of eternal 
mercy is slighted as an idle song, and its publisher is hated as 
a messenger of evil tidings, and an enemy to his race. Is not 
this the most conclusive evidence of a depraved heart ? In- 
gratitude is universally condemned. It implies a moral dere- 
liction — a baseness pf nature — which no man ever sought to 
11 



242 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

justify. Accuse your neighbor of ingratitude, and he may 
deny the charge, but will never vindicate the disposition. 
NoWj the guilt of ingratitude is in proportion to the value of 
the benefit, and the condescension of the benefactor. There- 
fore ingratitude to God is stronger proof of moral degeneracy 
than ingratitude to all other beings ; and ingratitude for the 
gospel — the only relief for our spiritual wants, and the only 
remedy for our spiritual woes — evinces a greater baseness and 
corruption than ingratitude for all his other gifts. Yet this 
disposition is one of man's earliest developments of moral cha- 
racter. It is born with us, and proves our depravity innate. 
It prevails everywhere, and proves the depravity universal. 

Take another fact. In the natural world, the nature of dif- 
ferent substances is known by their affinities. So in the moral 
world, the innate character of man is known by the objects of 
his affection. Ascertain the company your neighbor keeps, 
and you have an infallible clue to his character. Virtue and 
vice have no mutual affinities. Suppose in your town a person 
of unusual virtue, suavity, and benevolence. He is ever easy 
of access, exceedingly kind and conciliatory in his manners, 
and acts always from the noblest motives, ^' without partiality 
and without hypocrisy." His doors are open daily, his table 
richly spread for your entertainment, and every guest — the 
meanest — welcomed with sweetest words and blandest smiles. 
He is a man, too, of most varied and extensive knowledge, 
and wonderful discrimination and wisdom; and continually 
ready, with the utmost affability and cordiality, to express his 
mind clearly and fully to all who ask his counsel. Now, if 
his neighbors are indisposed to seek his society, cultivate his 
friendship, and consult as they have need his superior wisdom 
— if they shun his presence, decline his invitations, spurn his 
proffered kindness, and eye him askance as a foe — what 
opinion shall we form of their tastes and their tendencies? 
There is one whose knowledge is perfect, whose wisdom is 



THE HUMAN HEART. 243 

infinite, whose decisions are infallible — who interests himself 
in our condition, pities all our perplexities and sorrows, and 
is ever ready to impart counsel and relief — whose benevolence 
is greater than human tongue can tell, or human heart con- 
ceive — who never withheld a favor from a sincere and confid- 
ing applicant — who is able to do for us more than we can ask 
or think — who invites all to come and make known their 
needs, with the assurance of a prompt and full supply. Now 
if man's heart were right, he would say ; ^' It is good for me 
to draw nigh unto God/' He would delight in the Divine 
presence and communion. He would endeavor to maintain a 
constant intercourse with his Maker. What is the fact? 
Does the natural man take pleasure in devotion? No; he 
"restraineth prayer before God." If sickness, or calamity, 
or the fear of death, urges it upon him, it is a task submitted 
to with reluctance, and not a privilege embraced with joy. 
AVhy this aversion, if the heart is not wrong ? Why is prayer 
the last resort, and the least welcome of all our duties ? Why 
do we view with indifference, or avoid with disgust, the most 
splendid and perfect assemblage of moral attributes in the 
universe, if there is not within us an innate dislike of good- 
ness — an inherent baseness, perverseness, and impurity of 
soul? 

Again : We are conscious of immortality. There are 
thoughts that wander through eternity — voices within us 
which echo in other worlds, and tell of strange things beyond 
the tomb. Why are we so inattentive to these heart- prophecies 
of a life to come ? Why are we so regardless of the glorious 
destinies which the gospel develops to our faith ? If we 
were innocent and holy, it would be a joy to think of living 
for ever. We should look forward to other scenes and asso- 
ciations, and rejoice in the revelation of an endless being and 
an endless blessedness. Visions of celestial wonders would 
visit us in dreams, and the bliss of those who walk to and fro 



244 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

in the light of God's countenance would ravish our hearts with 
the ineffable delights of hope, and gold and diamonds would 
lose their value in the contemplation of the jewelled walls of 
the New Jerusalem ; and all the pomp and splendor of earth 
would fade away in the anticipation of that ^' far more exceed- 
ing and eternal weight of glory ;'^ and the concord of sweet 
sounds below would cease to charm the ear that listens for the 
song of the saints and the seraphim. The fact, alas ! is far 
different. The natural man dreads the contemplation of the 
future — shudders to look into eternity, as into some dreary 
bottomless pit. Ah, what a chilling prospect to him is that 
of living for ever ! How eagerly he returns from a sanctuary 
survey of immortality, to the scenes of earth and time ! 
With what reluctance he relinquishes that which shall soon 
be to him as if it had never been ! Ask him, and he will tell 
you, indeed, that he believes himself immortal — that he 
deems himself destined, in a few days, to plunge into a bot- 
tomless and shoreless sea of spirits ; yet all his feelings and 
all his faculties are occupied with this inch of soil — this 
moment of duration ; and death finds the immortal being con- 
structing his frail house of shells upon the sands of an ocean 
whose waves shall quickly demolish his work and bear away 
the builder. Strange contradiction ! Incredible stupidity ! 
Every thing else seems to know its appointed place and sea- 
son. The deep knows its bounds; and the tide knows its 
periods ; and the earth knows her revolutions ; and the sea- 
sons know their kindly vicissitudes ; and every beast of the 
field, and every fowl of the air, and every reptile in the dust, 
and every insect on the gale, knows its assigned home and its 
provided nourishment. But man — man only — has forgotten 
his origin and his end, and is endeavoring to fill his vast 
capacity with a point, and satisfy his immortality with a 
moment — regardless of his native home, his Father's house, 
and totally unconcerned about his everlasting future — strangely 



THE HUMAN HEART. 245 

lost in the sensual, while the spiritual is perpetually soliciting 
his attention — wholly devoted to the airy vanities of earth, 
while the substantial realities of heaven are constantly claim- 
ing his affections — pursuing the dancing mock-fires through 
the marsh of time, while the glorious panorama of eternity, 
with its mountains of gold and amethyst, fills all the sur- 
rounding horizon. How is this perversion and degradation 
of all his feelings and faculties to be accounted for, if there 
is not an inherent tendency to evil — if the original purity 
and splendor of his nature has not been dreadfully sullied by 
sin? 

Once more : How are we to account for the universal pre- 
valence of crime, in all nations, and in every age ? Griance 
over the page of history, and what is it but a record of human 
folly and human sin ? See Cain murdering his brother with- 
in sight of the cherub-guarded gate of Eden. See the de- 
luge sweeping away the corruption and violence which neither 
the persuasions of Mercy nor the menaces of Justice could 
restrain. See the fire-storm of vengeance consuming the sin 
of Sodom — the moral nuisance which a holy moral Governor 
could no longer tolerate. See the seven nations of Canaan 
filling up the measure of their iniquities, by their cruel and 
degrading superstitions, their idolatries, blasphemies, sacri- 
lege, and universal corruption and profligacy, abusing the Di- 
vine forbearance, and insulting the Divine holiness, till doomed 
to the exterminating sword of Israel. See the sons of Jacob 
— the chosen and peculiar people — emancipated by miracle 
from the iron rule of Pharaoh, fed with bread from heaven, 
and guided by the pillar of God — plunging into the grossest 
sensualism, and practicing the most impious crimes ; repudi- 
ating Jehovah while he pavilions himself visibly in their 
midst, and worshipping a golden calf at the base of Sinai 
while he talks with them in thunder from its summit. So the 
Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Grecians, and the 



246 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

Komans — the most enlightened nations of antiquity — were 
addicted to the most revolting practices ; and all the wisdom 
and authority of sages, poets, orators, philosophers, and legis- 
lators, was inadequate to their reformation. Christ introduced 
a better religion, a purer morality, illustrated by perfect ex- 
ample, and enforced by superior sanctions ; established a 
kingdom which is destined to endure for ever, and " purified 
unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works." But 
even Christianity, with all its Divine evidence, and all its 
Divine influence, could not exterminate crime — no, not even 
where it found entertainment in palaces, and enthronement 
over monarchs. And the Church itself, after a few centuries, 
degenerated into a mass of corruption ; and her worship be- 
came a heartless formality; and '^ the dayspriug from on high'^ 
was soon succeeded by a long night of ignorance, idolatry, and 
superstition; and the very earth groaned beneath its burden 
and its curse — a deplorable demonstration of the downward 
tendency of our nature — of its inherent sinfulness, and gravi- 
tation to evil. Since the Reformation, doubtless, there has 
been more piety in the Church, and an improving state of 
morals throughout Christendom ; but there is still an awful 
array of bigotry, superstition, intolerance, ambition, hypocrisy, 
perfidy, intemperance, blasphemy, sensuality, and various and 
enormous profligacy. How are we to account for this general 
corruption of manners, whicl^ hitherto no human power or 
expedient — not even the revelation of the Son of God — has 
been able to eradicate from the world ? Were there not some 
deep moral taint — some constitutional tendency to wrong — 
common to the whole species, we might expect to find among 
men at least as much virtue as vice, some individuals who 
never sinned, and some communities without a single sinful 
individual ; but such a phenomenon has never yet been wit- 
nessed, since Adam came weeping out of Paradise; and all 
history — all human observation and experience — corroborate 



THE HUMAN HEART. 247 

the testimony of the Royal Preacher : ^' Yea, also, the heart 
of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their 
heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead/' 

Man's fallen progeny is very different from ^^man pri- 
meval." Humanity was planted in Paradise, " a noble vine, 
wholly a right seed." Alas ! it is " turned into the degene- 
rate plant of a strange vine." We all inherit the disease, and 
are " by nature children of wrath :" — 

" Sprung from the man whose guilty fall 
Corrupts his race, and taints us all." 

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately 
wicked :" is such a heart to be trusted ? The nature " is 
very far gone from original righteousness" — "inclined to evil, 
and that continually :" is such a nature to be trifled with ? 
Watch the traitor in the camp. Mortify the members : cru- 
cify the flesh. Apply to God for aid against the foe within. 
Fallen humanity possesses no power of self-recovery, or self- 
improvement — no recuperative or conservative principle — no 
native germ of virtue. Without the assistance of heavenly 
mercy, no sinner would ever reform, no soul would ever be 
purified : all would grow worse and worse, and every succes- 
sive generation would deteriorate in morals, till men became 
fiends, and earth a hell. But there is a remedy : let us learn 
to appreciate the grace by which it is provided and revealed. 
There is a fountain opened for sin : let us resort thither, and 
wash away our moral defilement. Christ is our appointed 
propitiation and perpetual advocate. One who had stood by 
his cross declares that his blood "cleanseth from all sin;" and 
another, who had been the chief of sinners, testifies that he is 
" able to save to the uttermost." We need something more 
than forgiveness, and this too is proffered — a new birth, a new 
creation, a spiritual quickening, a moral resurrection. It is a 
great change, and demands a mighty agency ; but that agency 



248 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

is ever ready, and only awaits your submission and cordial 
cooperation. It is a wondrous and mysterious transformation; 
but it must be wrought, or we cannot see the kingdom of God. 
None but '^ the new man" can enter the New Jerusalem. No- 
thing unclean shall ever pass its gates of pearl. No polluted 
feet shall ever tread its sapphire pavements. No sinful hand 
shall ever sweep its golden lyres. No evil heart shall ever 
thrill to its hymns of joy. The wicked could not breathe its 
holy air, nor bear the intense light of its purity, nor endure 
the sanctity of its blessed companionships. ''Ye must be 
born again.'' Go, then, to the throne of grace. Go in the 
name of Jesus. Go with an humble boldness. Pray earn- 
estly and importunately. Pray for a clean heart and a right 
spirit. God will not deny your plea. He invites your ap- 
proach : he encourages your trust. " Though your sins be 
as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow ; though they be 
red like crimson, they shall be as wool." 



INNATE DEPRAVITY. 249 



XV.— INNATE DEPRAVITY. 

"For the imagination of man's heart is evil from his 
youth." These are the words of God immediately after the 
deluge. How strongly they contrast with his former declara- 
tion, when, pausing from his task of creation, he surveyed his 
new production, and pronounced it " very good V Man was 
his last and noblest work, made in his own image, after his 
likeness. Alas ! how soon and how sadly he is altered ! 
" How is the fine gold changed, and the most fine gold be- 
come dim!" How is the "right seed" "turned into the 
degenerate plant of a strange vine I" How is the noble crea- 
ture, that originally answered the idea of his Creator, con- 
verted into a hideous and disgusting monster, amid the 
Almighty's handiwork ! Sixteen centuries and a half are 
passed, and man has all this time been an accursed wanderer 
from Paradise ; and all trace of his original abode, with his 
original blessedness, has been eff"aced from the world. Of- 
fended Heaven has just swept the earth with the besom of 
destruction, and only one family of eight persons have escaped 
the watery ruin. God, when he saw the wickedness of man, 
repented that he had made him ; and now, for the same rea- 
son, he repents that he has destroyed him. "I will no more 
curse the ground for man's sake, neither will I any more 
smite every thing living as I have done." It is of no use : 
man's wickedness cannot be cured by judgments : floods can- 
not quench it, cannot cleanse it : I might punish again and 
again — I might desolate the world by deluge after deluge, 
11* 



250 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

and human wickedness would still reproduce itself with every 
successive generation : 1 will not repeat the experiment; ^'for 
the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." 

We regard this as a very emphatic affirmation that human 
nature is corrupt, and constantly tends to sin. Many proofs 
of this lamentable truth — proofs from Scripture and proofs 
from reason — were adduced in the last dissertation. We now 
resume the argument. 

Is man's depravity innate ? Is it born with him ? Is it 
inherited, or is it acquired ? Is it original with every indi- 
vidual in whom it prevails, or is it transmitted from sire to 
son through all the generations of the race ? Let us examine 
the evidence : — 

I. If human depravity is innate, it will show itself at an 
early period in life. 

What is the fact ? Does any mental quality reveal itself 
sooner ? Not one. Scarcely does the child become capable 
of moral action, before it displays a propensity to moral evil. 
The earliest exhibition of character is ordinarily an exhibition 
of sinfulness. The earliest exercise of the affections is com- 
monly an incipient dereliction. The earliest choice inclines 
to wrong. From the very cradle, man goes astray. Now, if 
that which begins to manifest itself as soon as there is an 
opportunity or capacity for its manifestation is justly deemed 
an attribute of human nature, what stronger proof could be 
furnished of native depravity in man ? 

II. If human depravity is innate, its development cannot 
be traced to any change in infancy. 

What is the fact ? Can you find its origin in the indi- 
vidual? Is it attributable to some previous change in his 
moral constitution? When did that change occur? Who 
witnessed it ? Who can give any account of it ? Human sin- 



INNATE DEPRAVITY. 251 

fulness is universal ; and if it is attributable to a previous 
change in infancy, that change also must be universal. ^'All 
have sinned :" have all experienced the change supposed ? 
Who can affirm it? What reason have we to believe it? 
There is no proof; and our only way of accounting for human 
sinfulness is by referring it to the original tendency of human 
nature. If a child is idiotic, and its idiocy cannot be attri- 
buted to any physical injury or disorder in infancy, we say it 
is naturally idiotic ; and if a child exhibits sinfulness in his 
first unfoldings of moral character, and that sinfulness cannot 
be ascribed to any previous change in his moral constitution, 
we ought to infer that he is naturally sinful. 

III. If human depravity is innate, it must necessarily be 
free and spontaneous in its operation. 

What is the fact ? Is its development the result of stren- 
uous effort, or of powerful motive, or of urgent solicitation ? 
Quite the contrary. Just as soon as occasion offers — just as 
soon as opportunity occurs — it puts forth its deadly power. 
Nay, it scarcely waits for occasion or opportunity. It seems 
impatient of restraint, and ready to burst through all obstruc- 
tions. It is not the wholesome plant, that awaits the vernal 
sun and shower, and then needs the vigilant care and diligent 
culture of the husbandman ; but the noxious weed, that anti- 
cipates the spring, and suddenly, before we are aware of its 
existence, or in spite of all our efforts to suppress its growth, 
attains a giant altitude and strength. It is a fountain break- 
ing forth, and carrying ruin on its flood. Long before your 
children are capable of expressing their feelings in words, 
you see in them the exhibitions of pride, anger, revenge, self- 
ishness, and other evil passions ; and these " roots of bitter- 
ness" are constantly "springing up" at every subsequent 
period of life. You scarcely lop one vigorous shoot before 
another appears m its place. Sinfulness acts as freely and 



252 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

spontaneously as any of those qualities — mental or physical — 
which are universally allowed to be natural to man; and 
ought, therefore, to be placed in the same category. 

IV. If human depravity is innate, it will be found exceed- 
ingly difficult to suppress or conquer. 

What is the fact ? I appeal to every parent who seeks to 
form his children to habits of virtue and piety. You see 
their early propensity to sin : you exert yourselves to subdue 
and correct that propensity ; but it constantly resists all your 
efforts, and breaks through every barrier ; or if you succeed 
in restraining your children from flagrant deeds of outward 
wickedness, yet the evil maintains its dominion in the heart, 
and perverts all their faculties, and corrupts all their affec- 
tions. I appeal to every man who is endeavoring to live a 
holy life. What is the lesson of your experience ? Has it 
not already taught you that your sinfulness is no superficial or 
accidental thing; that it is rooted deeply in your very nature; 
that it is an inherent quality, a part of yourselves; that 
opposing it is opposing your own natural disposition; that 
getting rid of it is cutting off a right arm, or plucking out a 
right eye ; that your most resolute resistance of it is unsuc- 
cessful ; that all the strength you can array against it only 
makes its superior power the more apparent ; and that it is 
altogether unconquerable, except by the correcting and re- 
newing grace of God ? And what does all this amount to, 
but a proof of our position, that human depravity is innate ? 
Whence this constant struggle, this warfare between the flesh 
and the spirit, if your conscious sinfulness is only an acquired 
habit of the soul, and not an inherited quality of the nature ? 
The fact is inexplicable upon any other principle. 

V. If human depravity is innate, its development may be 
certainly foreseen and infallibly foretold. 



INNATE DEPRAVITY. 253 

What is the fact ? There is an infant ; he has not yet 
exhibited any signs of a rational and moral nature ; yet we 
know that as soon as he becomes capable of intelligent and 
responsible action, he will begin to do wrong. It is no con- 
jecture : it is not a mere probability : it is a stern moral 
certainty. It is not more certain that he will talk, or walk, 
or think, or learn, or choose — nothing indeed is more certain 
with regard to him — than that he will sin. We are sure that 
no precaution of parents, no vigilance of instructors, no in- 
jBuence of virtuous example, no restraints of religious educa- 
tion, no happy combination of circumstances, will be sufl&cient 
to avert this dreadful result. We are sure that he will begin 
to sin as soon as he becomes capable of sinning. But how 
can we so certainly foretell his future character, when as yet 
he exhibits no character, and is incapable of any, unless there 
is in his very constitution a connate propensity to evil ? How 
can we predict his sinfulness from his humanity, unless his 
sinfulness proceeds from his humanity? This is the prin- 
ciple. There is in all men, in spite of all their theories, a 
deep conviction of human sinfulness — a constant practical 
recognition of a tendency in man to transgress the law of 
God. We predict the impurity of the stream from what we 
know of the fountain. We forebode the evil fruit from what 
we know of the tree. All proceed upon this principle, and 
there is no other explanation of the fact. That child belongs 
to the human race : one of the qualities of that race, hitherto 
universal, is sinfulness; and it is impossible to imagine that 
he shall be exempt from the sad inheritance. Have we not, 
then, as much evidence that man's sinfulness is innate, as 
that his faculty of speech, or of reason, or of memory, is 
innate? 

yi. If human depravity is innate, we must expect to find it 
universally and constantly prevailing in unregenerate mankind. 



254 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

"What is the fact ? Its power is seen in every individual 
of the human race, in all nations, and in all ages. There 
never has been but one exception in the world, and that was 
the result of a miraculous Divine interposition for the cure 
of the universal malady — "God manifest in the flesh." 
Wherever human nature exists, human depravity exists. 
You might as well seek for a man without social affections, 
or bodily appetites — ^you might as well look for a man without 
heart, or head, or lungs — as a man without evil propensities. 
He that saith he hath no sin is a liar, and the truth is not 
in him. It will not do to adduce the case of Samuel as an 
exception; for there is no proof that he was immaculate; 
and if he was, his sanctification was peculiar and miraculous. 
Where, then, is your specimen of sinless humanity ? If such 
an instance had ever occurred, would it not have been re- 
corded as a prodigy ? Yet if man is not naturally sinful — if 
his propensity to sin is not born with him — an original quality 
of his constitution, how comes it to pass that, among the 
many millions of the race, from generation to generation, and 
from century to century, no individual has ever escaped con- 
tamination? Is it supposable — is it possible — that every 
single unit of an innumerable race, for six thousand years, 
would follow the fatal course of Adam, if born without a sinful 
bias — an inherent tendency to evil ? It were a coincidence 
without a parallel in the history of universal being. Is not 
that which is universal justly deemed natural ? Kespiration 
is universal, and we say it is natural. The circulation of the 
blood is universal, and we say it is natural. Sensation, voli- 
tion, and memory, are universal, and we say they are natural. 
Why may we not reason in the same manner concerning the 
sad phenomenon of human sinfulness? No corporeal function 
or mental faculty is more manifestly universal. It has pre- 
vailed everywhere, and always prevailed. Therefore it cannot 
arise from any peculiar cause in any particular instance. It 



INNATE DEPRAVITY. 255 

cannot originate in any special influence or agency, operating 
at any particular place, or any particular time. The cause 
must be commensurate with the effect. Sinful tendency must 
be universal, and must belong to the very nature of man. 
Forced by this irresistible evidence, even Byron acknowledged 
the ^^ ineradicable taint of sin ;" and Rousseau, in spite of 
his beautiful theory of the perfectibility of human nature, 
owned and felt, at last, that it was infected with some deadly, 
inveterate disease. 

YII. There is a remarkable saying of our blessed Lord, 
which furnishes the basis of a very conclusive argument for 
the doctrine of innate depravity : — " By their fruits ye shall 
know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of 
thistles ? A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither 
doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." 

Here is the test, given by an infallible teacher. The prin- 
ciple stated operates uniformly and universally. Out of the 
heart are the issues of life. The external act is but the ex- 
pression of the internal principle. The general conduct of 
a man reveals the unquestionable bias of his nature. Look, 
then, at the furnished evidence. Always and everywhere, 
in all ages and all nations, man has proved himself a sinful 
creature. And still, throughout the human race, in every 
community, in every individual, in every station of life, and 
at every period of life, he displays the same character. And 
our personal experience corroborates the testimony of general 
observation. Who among us — even the wisest and best — 
can survey his own life, can examine his own heart, without 
the melancholy conviction of an inward evil tendency? 

The evidence of human depravity from human conduct 
displays itself in a thousand forms, in all conceivable forms, 
and even in forms which, without the facts, would have been 
quite inconceivable, or deemed utterly impossible. Its detec- 



256 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

tion requires no close and careful scrutiny : it is prominent 
before us ; it is palpable within us ; it is ever present, and 
cannot be avoided. If at any time, from any cause, we flat- 
ter ourselves that we are exempt, we sball soon be startled 
from the delusive dream by some unexpected development of 
latent evil. The smothered fire will break out into a con- 
flagration : the slumbering viper will uncoil itself in our 
bosom. Fly to the desert, and imagine that in escaping from 
society you escape from its contagion; but the plague-spot 
will soon show itself, even in your solitude, and symptom 
after symptom of the deadly malady will become manifest in 
the soul. It is no slight or partial taint ; but an inveterate 
gangrene, infecting the whole moral constitution. As the 
red uniform of the soldier makes him conspicuous through 
the smoke of battle, so the deep crimson of human sinfulness 
glares through all the pretexts and disguises of hypocrisy, 
and nothing serves to render it so apparent as the efibrts made 
for its concealment. '^ The deceitfulness of sin'' is one of its 
most obvious and hateful characteristics; and 'Hhe heart is 
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." It is 
difiicult to conceive how the evidence of human corrup- 
tion from human conduct and human consciousness could 
be increased ; and there is nothing that renders that evidence 
so irresistible as the blindness which cannot see it, the per- 
verseness which will not own it, the insensibility which does 
not feel it, and the pride which is not humbled by the proof. 
The law of gravitation in matter is not more evident than 
the law of sin in man. As bodies tend to the centre, so 
human nature gravitates to evil. No other disease is so certain 
in its symptoms as the hereditary disorder of the soul. Why 
is it that all men sin, except as they are restrained or 
renewed by the grace of God ? Could this be, if there were 
no cause anterior to voluntary action ? To ascribe the uni- 
versal fact to the mere freedom of the will were extremely 



INNATE DEPRAVITY. 257 

absurd. ^'It were/' says a venerable living divine,* 'Ho 
ascribe the most stupendous concurrence of perverted action, 
in all the adult millions of mankind, to nothing. The thing 
to be accounted for is the phenomenon of an entire series of 
universal actual sin ; and to ascribe the universal and entire 
obliquity of the human will to the simple ability of choosing 
wrong, were to ascribe the moral obliquity of a lost world to 
nothing.'^ 

Hear the great theologist and orator of Glasgow : — '^ Should 
it be found true of every man, that he is actually a sinner — 
should this hold true universally, with each individual of the 
human family — if, in every country of the world, and in every 
age of the world's history, all who have grown old enough to 
be capable of showing themselves were transgressors against 
the law of God — if, among all the accidents and varieties of 
condition to which humanity is liable, each member of human- 
ity still betook himself to his own wayward deviations from 
the rule of right — then he sins purely in virtue of his being 
a man — there is something in the very make and mechanism 
of his nature which causes him to be a sinner." 

From the sinful conduct of every individual man we argue the 
innate sinfulness of the species, just as from the ferocious con- 
duct of every individual tiger we argue the innate ferocity of the 
tribe. If every man is a sinner, it must be attributed to a per- 
vading natural tendency to sin. The uniformity of an event 
proves a natural tendency to that event. The uniform ascent 
of smoke proves its natural tendency to ascend : the uniform 
descent of water proves its natural tendency to descend ; and 
so the uniform sinfulness of man proves his natural tendency 
to sin. But mark, it is not the bare fact that smoke ascends, 
or that water descends, that proves the natural tendency, but 
the uniformity of that fact ; and so, it is not the bare fact 

* Rev. Lyman Beecher, D. D. 



258 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

that man sins that proves the natural tendency, but the uni- 
formity of that fact. All men, in every age, in every coun- 
try, in every variety of circumstances, in spite of every con- 
ceivable moral dissuasive, in spite of all possible efforts of 
Heaven to restrain and reform them — all men are sinners; 
and the deduction is certainly legitimate, that they sin, 
not because they breathe a tainted atmosphere, not because 
they are surrounded with evil example, or plied with pecu- 
liar temptation, but because they aje men — because they pos- 
sess a fallen and perverted nature — because they inherit a 
native tendency to sin. In the most genial soil and climate, 
with the most diligent care and culture, the tree has con- 
stantly brought forth corrupt fruit; and the conclusion is 
inevitable, that its nature must be corrupt. 

^^ If there were a piece of ground," says Jonathan Edwards, 
" which abounded with briers and thorns, or some poisonous 
plant, and all mankind had used their endeavors for a thou- 
sand years together to suppress that evil growth, and to bring 
that ground, by manure and cultivation, planting and sowing, 
to produce better fruit, all in vain — it would still be overrun 
with the same noxious growth — it would not be a proof that 
such produce was agreeable to the nature of the soil, at all to be 
compared with that which is given in Divine Providence, that 
wickedness is a produce agreeable to the nature of the field 
of the world of mankind ; for the means used with it have 
been great and wonderful, contrived by the unsearchable and 
boundless wisdom of God — medicines procured with infinite 
expense, exhibited with a vast apparatus, a marvellous suc- 
cession of dispensations, introduced one after another, dis- 
playing an incomprehensible length and breadth, depth and 
height, of Divine wisdom, love, and power, and every perfec- 
tion of the Godhead, to the eternal admiration of principali- 
ties and powers in heavenly places.'^ 

Who can deny that the seeds of vice are seen in early 



INNATE DEPRAVITY. 269 

childhood, and that to restrain their growth is the principal ob- 
ject of moral education ? And why is it that our opinion of the 
species generally becomes less favorable in proportion as we 
become better acquainted with the world ? Why is it that we 
attribute the faith of the young and inexperienced in human 
goodness to their ignorance of human nature ? And how will 
you account for the too obvious fact that there is in man a 
constant tendency to deterioration — that individuals almost 
invariably, and communities quite generally, grow worse with 
age ? Do not these facts prove conclusively that there is no 
corrective principle or recuperative power in human nature, 
but only a constant and almost irresistible tendency to evil ? 

And whence the origin, necessity, and frequent inefficiency 
of all human laws, and of all human governments ? If man 
did not inherit a proclivity to sin, the whole criminal code 
would be useless, and most civil restrictions would be need- 
less. To what expedients, what penalties, have not legis- 
lators and rulers resorted — confiscation, disfranchisement, 
bodily mutilation, exile and infamy, the prison and the pil- 
lory, the gallows and the guillotine ! Yet the whole ghastly 
array of terrors and tortures has ever been inadequate to the 
suppression of crime. Thefts and robberies, frauds and for- 
geries, murders and assassinations, with their thousand-fold 
accompaniment of deceit, and falsehood, and treachery, and 
inhumanity, are still rife throughout the earth. Such is the 
impetuous tendency of our fallen nature to wrong, that all the 
wisdom of sages and senators has not yet been able to inter- 
pose an effectual barrier to its progress. 

And what is the testimony of all human religions ? Why 
has every nation acknowledged — theoretically and practically 
— the necessity of sacrifice ; and most nations offered human 
victims, as the best atonement for human wickedness ? Why 
have they invented for themselves such monstrous objects of 
worship — 



260 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

"Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust, 
"Whose attributes are rage, revenge, and lust?" 

'' The Normans sacrificed human victims to a divinity whose 
rewards were believed to be reserved for such as slew the 
greatest numbers in battle ; and the happiness to which they 
aspired was intoxication in his halls, and the skulls of their 
slaughtered enemies were the sacred cups to be used in their 
eternal carousals V I need not cite the worship of the an- 
cient Britons, of the South Sea Islanders, of the American 
aborigines, of the thousand tribes of Africa, and of the more 
refined but not less sanguinary Asiatics. The reader is fami- 
liar with the facts, and the picture is too revolting for repro- 
duction. How are we to account for views and rites so 
unworthy of God, and so inconsistent with reason ? When a 
right conclusion was more obvious than a wrong, why was the 
latter always made, the former never ? Is not here an un- 
mistakable indication of the depraved moral feeling of man- 
kind — an innate love of crime — an innate aversion to purity 
and goodness ? Had not reason been blinded or perverted by 
passion, they must have discovered something of God's real 
character in his works and government; for in these ''the 
invisible things of him are clearly seen/' '' so that they are 
without excuse.'' But " their foolish hearts were darkened ;" 
and ''not liking to retain God in their knowledge," they 
invented numberless false gods, to suit their own carnal pre- 
ferences and propensities — gods as polluted and as profligate 
as themselves. 

But we need not go to pagan lands for proof. Look, look 
at the careless and God-forgetting world around you ! Whence 
that practical disregard of duty ? Whence that general un- 
willingness to think of eternity? Whence those habitual 
eiforts to stifle the voice of conscience ? Why do men live 
on from year to year without giving themselves a moment's 
serious concern about their souls and their salvation ? Sec 



INNATE DEPRAVITY. 261 

that proud and careless sinner, in full healtli and prosperity ! 
You must not speak to him of another world : he is above 
such vulgar considerations. You must not ask him to pray : 
he leaves that for silly enthusiasts, and for the sick and the 
dying. But behold a change ! He writhes upon his bed. 
The grave yawns before him. Hell hastes to meet him. The 
remembrance of neglected duty torments him. The frown of 
an angry God affrights him. Now he sends for the minister. 
Now he seeks counsel from those he despised. Now he im- 
plores mercy with piteous cries and groans and tears. Ah ! 
what regrets for the past ! what solemn promises for the 
future ! If Heaven will but spare him, how much better he 
will live ! He recovers. What now ? Alas ! all is banished 
from his thoughts. He shuns more than ever the pious com- 
pany he sought in his distress. He gives himself wholly to 
the world. He lives without God. He never prays. He is 
more thoughtless and hardened than before. Such cases are 
so common that they scarcely excite our wonder; but 0, what 
proof they furnish of the inveteracy of human sinfulness ! 
What demonstration of the unparalleled deceitfulness and 
desperate wickedness of the human heart : 

Let me bring the argument home. I appeal to every sin- 
ner. Be honest. Bo you delight in prayer ? Do you de- 
light in pious company ? Is the love of God your ruling 
principle ? Is conformity to his law the supreme aim of your 
life ? Had you a strong desire to serve and honor him as 
soon as you knew him ? Have you now an earnest solicitude 
to ascertain and perform his holy will ? Is it as easy for you 
to do right as to do wrong ? When you do wrong, is it 
merely through ignorance or inadvertency ? When you dis- 
cover your errors, do you immediately repent and thoroughly 
reform ? Do you delight in all the revealed perfections of 
God — in his holiness, his justice, and his truth ? Is not the 



262 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

opposite of all this true of you, and was it not always with 
you as it is now, even from your earliest recollection ? 

I proceed from the bad to the good — from the worst to the 
best. I appeal to every saint. Did you not long walk ^' ac- 
cording to the course of this world V What were your views 
of yourselves when you were once awakened, and began to 
seek the Lord ? Did you not feel that " the carnal mind is 
enmity against God'^ — that '^it is not subject to the law of 
G-od, neither indeed can be ?" Did you not feel that your 
heart was as " a nest of unclean birds/^ and " all your right- 
eousness as filthy rags V Were you not obliged to struggle 
against self — to '^mortify the deeds of the body" — to ^^ crucify 
the flesh, with the affections and lusts ?" Did you love God 
before you were converted ? Was not the love of God a new 
affection, which you had never felt before ? Did you not feel 
yourself " a new creature " — " old things passed away," and 
'' all things become new ?" And since that blessed change, 
have you not frequently felt the necessity of struggling to 
" keep the body under, and bring it into subjection ?" Is 
not the whole Christian life, from its commencement, a war- 
fare with an inward foe ? 

Frequently, there is no better method of proving a great 
truth than by exhibiting the consequences of its denial. Ap- 
ply this method. If there is no innate depravity, then in- 
fants are either holy, or they are neither holy nor sinful. That 
they are positively holy, is a position which none will attempt 
to maintain. Those who deny the doctrine for which we ar- 
gue, generally say that infants have no moral character — that 
they are neither holy nor sinful. But this, a little reflection 
will show to be absurd. How can a being possessed of a 
moral nature be totally void of moral character ? How can a 
being who is under the government of God, be without any 
relation to the law of God ? And what can become of such a 



INNATE DEPRAVITY. 263 

being after death ? He cannot go to heaven, for he is not 
holy. He cannot go to hell, for he is not sinful. Let those 
who advocate the theory find a home for him, for there is 
none revealed in the Bible. And if there is no native de- 
pravity, then for infants regeneration is neither necessary nor 
possible. It is not necessary, for there is no moral impurity 
to be removed, no moral deficiency to be supplied. It is not 
possible, for regeneration is a change from sin to holiness, but 
infants are incapable alike of both. And what do they owe 
to Christ as a Redeemer ? What need have they of his blood — 
what interest in his death ? He came to save sinners — to save 
the lost ; and if they are in no sense sinners, in no sense lost, 
they can derive no benefit from his advent ; and if they are 
saved, it is not, as others, through his merit and grace ; and in 
heaven they will never be able to join the song — ^' Unto him 
that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood !" 
" But does not this doctrine of innate depravity involve the 
inconsistency of attributing moral evil to those who are inca- 
pable of moral action ?" Here is, indeed, an apparent diffi- 
culty, which, however, a few words will relieve. Infants are 
not responsible for this native corruption, till they become ca- 
pable of resisting and suppressing its operation. But as soon 
as they are capable of doing wrong, they are capable also of 
doing right. If nature inclines them to the former, grace en- 
ables them to the latter. Grrace is always available, and al- 
ways commensurate with their needs. They are held answer- 
able, not for Adam's sin, but only for their own. The per- 
sonal act of Adam is no more yours, than the pulsations of 
Adam's heart are yours. No appointment, covenant, or con- 
stitution, can create such a connection or identity of progeni- 
tor and progeny, as to make the latter responsible for the acts 
of the former, or render it possible for any person to sin be- 
fore he exists. Infants are tainted with a sinful nature, but 
not chargeable with sinful actions. They inherit corruption. 



264 HEADLANDS OF TAITH. 

but are incapable of crime. They are justified already, and 
saved when they die ; but not without " the washing of re- 
generation, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, shed on them 
abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Lord/' 

" But if sinning is natural, is it not excusable ?'^ By no 
means. Nature must not be confounded with necessity. Sin- 
ning may be natural without being necessary. You may have 
a natural proclivity to sin, but also a gracious power to resist 
that proclivity. Divine aid is furnished to every man, to en- 
able him to conquer his carnal inclinations : if he does not 
avail himself of it, he is guilty — he makes his corruption his 
crime. Manifestly, if you have power to overcome your evil 
propensities, and will not use it, those propensities themselves 
become criminal, instead of justifying the criminal actions 
which they occasion. Do the robber and the burglar excuse 
their crimes by their propensities ? Do the incendiary, the 
assassin, and the murderer ? Nothing can be excusable which 
God has explicitly forbidden, especially when he has given us 
grace to resist and conquer. " Natural corruption,'^ says Jeremy 
Taylor, " can make us criminal, but cannot make us innocent.'' 

'^ But may not the general prevalence of moral evil be ac- 
counted for by the influence of bad example ?" This is only 
shifting, not solving the difficulty. How will you account for 
that bad example ? Whose example did Cain follow in the 
murder of his brother ? Nay, it is not even shifting the dif- 
ficulty; for bad example is but another name for wickedness; 
and to attribute the prevalence of wickedness to the influence 
of bad example is to attribute it to itself. It ought also to be 
remembered, that children often exhibit evil dispositions be- 
fore they have witnessed any evil example, or before they 
are susceptible of its influence. But if example alone 
is so potent, why has not good example as much power as 
bad? Why is the bad always followed — the good never? 
Do not the children of virtuous parents frequently become 



INNATE DEPRAVITY. 265 

grossly immoral ? If not naturally corrupt, the good example 
always before their eyes should certainly exert more influence 
upon them than the bad example which they seldom see. In 
short, allowing to bad example all the power that is claimed 
for it — if man is pure by nature, there should be more virtue 
than vice in the world, which we know is not the fact ; and 
if the soul is at birth a perfect blank, equally inclined to 
good and evil, or naturally inclined to neither, then virtue and 
vice ought to be pretty equally balanced, whereas all history 
and experience proclaim the contrary. 

"But if there is much vice among men, is there not also 
much virtue V This we do not deny. We only deny that 
the virtue which does exist is the natural product of the hu- 
man heart. We insist that it is the gift of God — the fruit of 
his Holy Spirit. But what is it you call virtue ? Perhaps, 
upon examination, it may not be virtue at all. Men may 
abstain from outward misconduct through motives of interest 
— may be deterred by the fear of disgrace or suffering • and 
in this case, the propriety of external deportment indicates no 
indwelling of virtuous principle whatever — only proves that, 
however deep and inveterate the corruption of their nature, it 
has not utterly displaced all desire of happiness and honor — 
has not quite excluded all considerations of reason, and pru- 
dence, and decency. 

" But is not the doctrine disproved by the social affections, 
and the attachments of consanguinity V No. These senti- 
ments are amiable, but not virtuous. They contribute much 
to our happiness, but possess no moral quality. They may be 
strong in the worst of men, and comparatively feeble in the 
best. They are not peculiar to moral agents, but are exhibit- 
ed also by the lower animals. So far from being virtuous, 
they have led frequently to the most atrocious crimes. They 
are mere animal instincts, and prove nothing as to moral 
character, or moral tendency. 
12 



266 HEADLANDS OV FAITH. 

" But I am not conscious of such depravity ; I certainly 
possess some good qualities, and am free from some bad ones." 
Very likely. But are your good qualities inherent in your 
nature ? Are they not the product of Divine grace — seeds 
wafted from paradise, and watered with celestial dew ? Have 
not the evil qualities been subdued, or kept in check, by the 
influence of the Holy Spirit, and the wholesome restraints of 
religious custom ? Otherwise, who can tell what might have 
been their development ? But are you quite sure that you 
thoroughly know yourself? Does not self-love often disguise 
to us our true character ? Do not our own hearts deceive us? 
We may appear very diff'erent to others from what we appear 
to ourselves. " That which is highly esteemed among men is 
abomination in the sight of God.'^ None but the holy can know 
the power of innate human sinfulness. They know, for they 
have felt it, and only by grace Divine become its conquerors. 
It was by resisting the foe they discovered his entrenchments 
and ascertained his strength. It was by probing and medica- 
ting the wound, they learned its depth, corruption, and dan- 
gerous character. Who are they that deny the radical evil 
of human nature ? Generally, they that yield to every sinful 
propensity — they that pamper the flesh instead of crucifying 
it, and glide down the easy current of their own depravity 
without one effort to resist its power. How can they know 
the strength of an adversary with whom they have never 
wrestled — of a torrent which they have never attempted to 
stem ? " Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and 
have need of nothing ; and knowest not that thou art wretched, 
and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.'' 

But what do I ? The subject is eminently practical. Away 
with theory ! Away with argument ! Away with specula- 
tion ! Look back upon your past life ! Look into your own 
heart ! Ah ! what reason for humiliation ! What cause for 
shame and confusion of face I What need of renewinii: grace. 



INNATE DEPRAVITY. 267 

and of subsequent vigilance, and of prayer without ceasing, 
and of constant aid from on liigli ! Almighty God, help us in 
this holy warfare, and make us more than conquerors through 
him that hath loved us ! Amen. 



268 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 



XVI.— SALVATION CONDITIONAL. 

Am I a sinner ? Do I need a Saviour ? Is there any way 
of salvation revealed for me? These are momentous ques- 
tion — worth the advent of an angel to answer — answered by 
the advent of the Lord of angels. There is another, not less 
important — that of the awakened thousands at the Pentecost 
— of the trembling jailer of Philippi — ^^ What must I do to 
be saved?'' If provision has been made for my salvation, 
how may I avail myself of that provision ? Is there any thing 
for me to do ? and, if so, what is it ? Is my salvation already 
made sure ? or does it depend upon my own agency ? May I 
dismiss all care and solicitude on the subject ? or must I exert 
myself to secure that blessed result ? Finally, Is there any 
thing at stake — any thing to be gained or lost, in my ultimate 
and everlasting state, by my conduct and character in the 
relations which I now sustain to God and his moral govern- 
ment ? This question we propose to answer. That we may 
do it thoroughly, we must first prove that salvation is condi- 
tionalj and then describe its conditions. 

I. The conditionality of salvation may be argued from the 
government of God. 

The government of God is a fact which cannot be ques- 
tioned. Government implies law : law implies sanctions : 
sanctions imply conditions. Further: Moral government 



SALVATION CONDITIONAL. 269 

implies freedom of choice : freedom implies an alternative to 
be chosen : an alternative implies conditionality of result. 
Human destiny, therefore, must depend upon human conduct. 
Man makes his own future. It was so before the fall, and 
has been so ever since. Human welfare was originally condi- 
tional, and is still conditional. Redemption operates no 
change in this respect. What was conditional at first, is con- 
ditional still. The condition itself is altered ; but the fact of 
conditionality remains. The primary condition was obedience : 
the present condition is repentance and faith. 

The conditionality of salvation may be inferred from the 
analogy of nature. 

The government of God is a unit. It is the same, in its 
general principles and bearings, throughout the universe, and 
throughout eternity. We see but little, the incipient stages, 
of its operation ; but what is seen is the index of what is not 
seen. From the natural we infer the moral. Moral causes 
produce their results just as certainly as physical causes. The 
same uniformity of sequence pervades the Divine appoint- 
ments in morals as in physics. We are bound to infer the 
intimate connection of cause and effect in the spiritual world 
as in the material. It is an infallible principle, therefore, 
that our well-being depends upon our well-doing. It is 
attested by constant observation and experience. Every man 
knows it. The reaping of to-morrow is the sowing of to-day. 
The destiny of manhood is determined by the character of 
youth. The principle is universal. It holds true in regard 
to knowledge — in regard to fortune — in regard to reputation. 
If there is any analogy — and who will doubt it ? — it must hold 
true in regard to things spiritual and eternal. If every thing 
else is conditional, conditional also must be the salvation of 
the soul. 

The conditionality of salvation may be deduced from the 
doctrine of prohation. 



270 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

All men are in a state of trial. The issue is an alternative, 
determined by the conduct of the actors. There is a test, an 
investigation, and an appropriate reward. This is the true 
idea of probation. It applies everywhere. Youth is a proba- 
tion for manhood. The conduct of the former determines the 
character and fortunes of the latter. There is more than one 
possible issue, and every one must decide the alternative for 
himself. The same principle governs the condition and the 
destiny of man in all his earthly relations. See it in the 
child, the pupil, the subject, the soldier — in the various de- 
partments of secular business, and the relations of wedded 
love. Being true of this life, it must be true also of the life 
to come. Our conduct in time must decide our state in eter- 
nity. It is a race — it is a contest; and the reward of the 
competitor depends upon the success of the competition. 
Probation implies a definite period of limitation : that period 
may be longer or shorter — ten years, or three-score and ten ,• 
but whatever is achieved must come within that period. The 
limit is there — fixed by infallible wisdom and infinite good- 
ness 'y and human efibrt cannot alter the Divine appointment. 
A failure is irretrievable and eternal. 

The conditionality of salvation is manifest from the very 
nature of the gospel. 

The gospel comes to us in the form of a covenant — not be- 
tween the Father and the Son, but between God and man. 
It is called the New Covenant : the law was the old. It is 
called the Covenant of grace : the law was the covenant of 
works. ^' We are not under the law, but under grace." The 
old covenant was broken : God mercifully provided a new. 
Certain benefits are proposed, pledges are given, and terms are 
specified. There is also a Mediator, whose office it is to see 
that the respective interests of the parties are properly re- 
garded, and the stipulations of the compact faithfully exe- 
cuted. In this covenant God proffers salvation to man, and 



SALVATION CONDITIONAL. 271 

binds himself to confer that inestimable benefit, on the per- 
formance by US of certain things which are distinctly stated. 
If we fail to comply, we forfeit the engagement : if we do our 
part, justice and truth demand the fulfilment of God's. There 
is no salvation, except within the provisions and limitations 
of this covenant. Various arguments and incentives are pre- 
sented to engage us in our duty ; but there is no impinge- 
ment on moral agency. Man is redeemed, and left to his 
own free choice. 

"Heaven wills our happiness — allows onr doom : 
Invites tis ardently, but not compels." 

The conditionality of salvation is explicitly taught in the 
word of God. 

Read ! ^' Except a man be born again, he cannot see the 
kingdom of God." '^ Except ye be converted, and become as 
little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven." 
"Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the 
Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the king- 
dom of heaven." " Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, 
Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but he that 
doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven." " He that 
hath the Son hath life : he that hath not the Son of God hath 
not life." These scriptures plainly declare the conditionality 
of salvation, though they do not specifically describe the con- 
ditions. Similar teachings may be found on almost every 
page. Think not, therefore, to be saved without effort of 
your own. Think not to win the prize without running the 
I'ace — to receive the wages without doing the work — to enjoy 
the reward of victory without the conquest of the field. 
" Ask, and ye shall receive : seek, and ye shall find : knock, 
and it shall be opened unto you." " Blessed are they that 
hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." 
*^ Labor not for the meat that perisheth, but for that which 



272 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

endureth to everlasting life." If the former is not secured 
without effort, so neither is the latter j and the effort is more 
needful, in proportion as the object is more important. And 
is it an easy work? ^'Strive" — literally, '^agonize'' — *'to 
enter in at the strait gate." '' The kingdom of heaven suf- 
fereth violence, and the violent take it by force." It is a 
struggle for the mastery — an assault upon a fortified place — a 
victory gained at the point of the sword. And as in the com- 
mencement of our salvation, so in all its subsequent stages — 
so in its consummation — it is still conditional. The apostle 
says to his brethren — already justified and regenerate : ''Work 
out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is Grod 
that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good plea- 
sure." " Let us not be weary in well-doing ; for in due sea- 
son we shall reap, if we faint not." " Give diligence to make 
your calling and election sure ; for if ye do these things, 
ye shall never fall ; for so an entrance shall be ministered 
unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ." These are only a few specimen 
texts; but enough to settle the point beyond dispute. Sal- 
vation is conditional in all its stages — from the earliest emo- 
tions of penitence to the opening gates of paradise — from the 
first inception of renewing grace to the final coronation of the 
saint in glory. It is free, in all its degrees, for all who will 
accept it on the terms revealed : impossible to any who de- 
spise the specified conditions. 

"Heaven but persuades : almighty man decrees : 
Man is the maker of immortal fates : 
Man falls by man, if finally he fall." 

II. But what, specifically, are the conditions of salvation ? 
" Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus 
Christ." These constituted, everywhere, the burden of apos- 
tolic preaching ; and they are associated in every instance of 



SALVATION CONDITIONAL. 273 

human salvation, except in infancy, involuntary ignorance, or 
mental imbecility. True, sometimes repentance alone, some- 
times faith alone, is mentioned as the condition; but when 
this is the case, the one always includes the other. They are 
distinct in nature, but united in operation. They cannot ex- 
ist apart. They go hand in hand throughout the whole pro- 
cess of the soul's return to God. There can be no repentance 
without faith : there can be no faith without repentance. 
Repentance begins in faith and ends in faith : faith pervades 
and perfects every exercise of true repentance. Neither is 
complete without the other. A distinct explanation of each 
will show their mutual relations, and their respective import- 
ance, in the evangelical economy. 

What, then, is " repentance toward God ?^^ 

The term is a very comprehensive one. It signifies, lite- 
rally, a change of mind. In this primary sense, it includes 
all that is required of the sinner in order to his salvation. 
Saving repentance is a painful sense of sin — a sincere grief 
for sin — a profound shame for sin — an intense hatred of sin 
— an ingenuous confession of sin — a hearty renunciation of 
sin — a perpetual mortification of sin. It is an honest, and 
earnest, and thorough, and lasting, reformation of life — an 
enlightened and deliberate election of the better part — turn- 
ing to God with weeping and supplication — laying hold on the 
hope set before us in the gospel — working out our own salva- 
tion with fear and trembling. It is hungering and thirsting 
after righteousness — groaning for freedom from the burden of 
guilt — struggling against the evil tendency of our nature — 
crucifying the flesh, with the affections and lusts — putting off 
the old man with his corrupt deeds, and putting on the new 
man, the spirit of Christ, the moral image of God. 

True repentance is "repentance toward God." It comes 
from God, and leads to God. It is his Spirit that opens the 
mental eye — that quickens the moral sense. It is only in the 
12* 



274 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

light of his law that " sin becomes exceeding sinful" — only 
under the influence of his grace that it is felt to be " an evil 
thing, and bitter." When he shines in our hearts, then sin 
assumes a new aspect. It is perfectly odious and detestable. 
There is nothing on earth so hateful — nothing in hell so dread- 
ful. No man will ever forsake sin without such a view of its 
intrinsic vileness ; and such a view nothing but the truth and 
the grace of God can produce. The penitent sinner feels that 
his relation to God is more important than all his relations to 
all other beings. To have sinned against so just a moral go- 
vernor, so gracious a benefactor, so benevolent a father — ^this 
is what stings him to the heart — this is what lays him 
prostrate in the dust — this is what makes him beat his 
guilty breast, and plead imploringly for mercy — this is what 
makes him sorrow for his evil doings, even more than he 
trembles for his punishment, lie can scarcely think of any 
thing else. He could weep his life away, for having grieved 
his God. He does not seek to excuse or palliate his crimes. 
He confesses, with Job, that he is vile; and with Job, ab- 
hors himself for his vileness. He exclaims, with the contrite 
David, ^'Against thee — thee only — have I sinned, and done 
this evil in thy sight." He wholly condemns himself, while 
he justifies the Divine law — both precept and penalty. Here 
is his acknowledgment : — 

"Should sudden vengeance seize my breath, 
I must pronounce thee just in death ; 
And if my soul were sent to hell, 
Thy righteous law approves it well." 

Repentance, then, is not mere compunction. It implies 
compunction ; but it implies something more. There is no 
repentance without compunction ; but compunction does not 
constitute repentance. It does not always lead to repentance. 
There may be powerful conviction, without any contrition. 
There may be an agony of remorse, without any submission 



SALVATION CONDITIONAL. 275 

of the will. Wicked men are often awakened from their car- 
nal slumber, and distressed with a sense of their danger, when 
there is no reformation, or only a slight and transient one. 
Their consciences are soon quieted, and their religious impres- 
sions vanish like the morning cloud, and they become more 
careless and insensible than before ; or else they flatter them- 
selves that their repentance is genuine, and so remain deceived 
all their lives, and presume to hope for heaven, though they 
are yet '^in the gall of bitterness, and the bond of iniquity.^' 
Who ever manifested greater compunction than Saul for the 
persecution of David ? yet he returns again and again, with 
murder in his heart, to the pursuit of the innocent fugitive. 
The same cause impelled Judas to suicide. Were not Peter's 
hearers at the Pentecost " pricked in their hearts V yet the 
apostle proceeded to urge upon them the duty of immediate 
repentance. Mere legal conviction, then, however pungent, 
painful, protracted, is not repentance. Sinners will all be 
convicted at the last day; but not one will repent. The devil 
and his angels are already convicted ; but their repentance is 
impossible. Compunction, indeed, instead of constituting 
^^ repentance unto salvation,'^ is an element in the eternal suf- 
fering of the lost. Yet this feeling is not to be despised. If it 
is not repentance, it must precede repentance — it may result 
in repentance. The awakened sinner is certainly nearer the 
kingdom of heaven than he that still slumbers in his sins. 

Nor does repentance consist in slight and transient regrets, 
however sincere for the time, and however influential while they 
last in restraining from outward sin. Men may regret their 
crimes from a dread of their consequences, without any proper 
sense of their intrinsic evil and awful desert. The thief re- 
grets, when he meets the ofl&cer. The robber regrets, when 
he enters the dungeon. The murderer regrets, when he as- 
cends the scaff"old. The profligate regrets, when he lies down 
to die. Nothing is more common than for wicked men to 



276 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

regret tlieir wickedness, when they find that punishment is 
approaching. But this is sorrow for the consequences — not 
for the sin. This is not that 'Uender, contrite heart/^ 

"Which grieves at having grieved its Lord, 
And never can itself forgive." 

Regret may lead to confession ; but confession does not con- 
stitute repentance. There must be confession; but confession 
is not enough. You may confess often — confess habitually — 
yet remain impenitent. Thousands confess what they never 
feel. The heart is not broken. The will is not subdued. 
There is no '' godly sorrow.'^ Sin is acknowledged, but not 
renounced. 

Confession may be accompanied with partial reformation ; 
but partial reformation will prove ineffectual. Here lies a 
very common mistake. Men forsake their grosser sins, and 
think the work of repentance is done. Alas ! it is not yet 
begun. It is useless to lop the branches : they will sprout 
again : the axe must be laid to the root. It is useless to dam 
the stream while the fountain keeps flowing : it will rise and 
burst the barrier. All sin must be forsaken — none retained. 
All must be forsaken — not merely because it deserves punish- 
ment, and exposes to the wrath of God, but because it is evil 
in itself, and loathsome in our sight. We must break off our 
sins by righteousness, and our iniquities by turning to the 
Lord. These are ^^ works meet for repentance," without 
which repentance is incomplete. " If I regard iniquity in my 
heart, the Lord will not hear me." 

What a miserable delusion is that which makes repentance 
to consist in mere penance ! How terrible the responsibility 
of those who corrupt the word of God, and so translate it as 
to make the unlettered multitude believe that some slight act 
of self-denial, or self-mortification, appointed by the priest as 
a punishment for sin, is sufficient for the sinner's absolution, 



SALVATION CONDITIONAL, 277 

without any change of mind — any regrets for the past — any re- 
solves for the future — any reformation of life, or return to Grod ! 
Believe me, repentance is something very different from this. It 
is a new habit of the soul. It is the germ — the incipient de- 
velopment — of a new character. It is not a single act of peni- 
tence. It is a life-long sorrow for sin — a life-long hatred of sin 
— a life-long renunciation of sin — a life-long struggle against 
sin — a life-long humiliation on account of sin — a life-long pray- 
er to God for pardoning and renewing grace. The Christian 
always appears before the mercy-seat in the character of a peni- 
tent. His sweetest songs are mingled with penitential tears. 
Even when he feels that he is pardoned and renewed, he never 
ceases sorrowing for his sin. The more holy he becomes, the 
more penitent he becomes. The more he grows in grace, the 
more he hates sin, and laments that he ever sinned. The more 
the love of God is shed abroad in his heart, the more that heart 
is melted into sweet ingenuous relenting for its past delinquen- 
cies. He is a mourner all his days; but he enjoys the mourner's 
benison. " The High and Holy One that inhabiteth eternity'^ 
condescends to dwell in his humble, contrite, trembling heart. 
He tastes '' the mystic joys of penitence f and loves to weep, 
even over pardoned and purged iniquity. And when — among 
immortal worshippers — in the temple not made with hands — 
he looks upon the blessed Jesus, with the crimson marks upon 
his brow, and the wounds of crucifixion in his palms — 0, how 
could he cease to grieve for the sins that spiked the sinless 
victim to the tree, but that those sufferings expiated those 
very sins, and they are drowned in the sweet ocean of redeem- 
ing love, and the painful memory is lost in the triumphant 
consciousness, and the sigh half breathed swells into a song to 
" the Lamb that was slain V 

The repentance which we have described is the indispensa- 
ble condition of salvation. True, there is in it no merit to 
atone, no efficacy to cleanse ; yet is there a manifest coneru- 



ZiQ HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

ity in the connection of repentance and remission of sins. 
Before you will be reconciled to the offender, you require in 
him some signs of penitence. Can God do less? Can he 
acquit the rebel in arms against his government? What 
would this be, but a license to sin — a proclamation of its im- 
punity ? no ! You must ground your weapons, and hum- 
ble yourselves before him, and implore his mercy in the name 
of the Mediator. Repentance is the way to pardon — the gate 
by which you must enter the path of life. 

But do not — 0, do not dream that you can repent of your- 
selves, whenever you please, without any heavenly aid, and so 
put off this most important duty to some future convenient 
season ! Ah ! how many — how many — under this fatal delu- 
sion, have deferred the work till their dying day; and then 
have sought repentance, and repentance would not come ! 
They could not feel the evil of sin, could not grieve for sin, 
and they died despairing. Beware, I beseech you, of their 
example ! Is the Spirit of Grod now striving with you ? You 
need all the help he offers. If he departs, you can do nothing. 
Cooperate with him while you may ! Now he enlightens the 
mind — he softens the heart — he seeks to subdue the will — he 
would draw you away from your sins — he would lead you to 
the cross of Christ — he would engage you in the service of 
the Lord. 

"Yield to his love's resistless power, 
And figlit against your God no more !" 

But faith is not less important than repentance. Repent- 
ance, indeed, is the condition of salvation only as it includes 
faith. Considered as exclusive of faith, it is no condition of 
salvation at all ; but faith becomes the one sole condition, and 
assumes a preeminent importance. 

What, then, is '^ faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ ?" 
What is its nature ? Belief and trust. It is a firm and 



SALVATION CONDITIONAL. 279 

undoubting persuasion of the truth of what God has revealed 
concerning his Son^ and the certainty of what he has pro- 
mised for his sake. 

What is its basis ? The character of God. We are sure 
that a being of infinite moral excellence cannot deceive. We 
think of his glorious perfections, and confide in his gracious 
communications. We cannot doubt infinite goodness and 
eternal truth. 

What is its standard ? The Divine revelation. Not the 
Pope — not the Church — not the council — not ecclesiastical 
tradition ; but the word of God. We must believe just what 
that teaches, and nothing more. If we fall short of this, our 
faith is defective : if we go beyond it, our faith is redundant. 

What are its objects ? In general, God — all that is revealed 
concerning his perfections and his government: man — all 
that is revealed concerning his condition, his redemption, and 
his destiny : Christ — all that is revealed concerning his per- 
son and character, his advent and ministry, his passion, resur- 
rection, return to heaven, perpetual advocacy of our cause, 
and ability to save unto the uttermost all that come unto 
God by him. 

" But must I believe in Christ as both God and man ? 
Plow can I understand such a mystery ? How can I credit 
what I cannot comprehend ?'' 

I answer : You must believe in him as he is — as the Father 
has revealed him. If he is both God and man — if the Father 
has revealed him as both God and man — and you believe in 
him as only God, or as only man, or as a being who is neither 
God nor man — inferior to the former, superior to the latter, 
and difi"erent from both — then your faith is defective ; nay, it 
is false : you do not believe in the Christ of the gospel at all, 
but in an imaginary being, very different from the Christ of 
the gospel. The gospel calls him " God,^^ " the true God/' 
and " God blessed for ever :" the gospel calls him a " man,'' 



280 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

'Hhe Son of man/^ and "the man Christ Jesus;" and I do 
not see how your faith can answer the evangelical requisition, 
unless it receives him, honors him, and relies upon him, in 
his twofold nature and relations. And why embarrass your 
faith with needless questions of reason ? Christ is God : is 
there any difficulty in believing that ? Christ is man : is 
there any difficulty in believing that ? Abstractly, there is no 
difficulty in believing either. Then where is the difficulty '/ 
In connecting the two propositions — in uniting the two na- 
tures. But with that faith has nothing to do. Faith deals 
with the facts, not with their philosophy. There is no diffi- 
culty whatever, so long as you restrict yourself to the pro- 
vince of faith — no difficulty, till you attempt to bring reason to 
the aid of faith. But faith needs no such auxiliary. Either 
proposition, by itself, is perfectly simple — involves no mys- 
tery. Take them as they stand, and do not embarrass your 
faith with difficulties of your own creation. 

'^ But must I believe in Christ as my suffering substitute — 
a sacrifice for my sins ? Is it not enough that I believe in 
him as an inspired teacher, an illustrious example of virtue, 
and a martyr to the cause of truth and righteousness ?" 

1 answer again : If the gospel presents him as your substi- 
tute and sacrifice, you must believe in him as such, or 3'ou 
do not believe in the Christ of the gospel at all. If the gos- 
pel sets him forth as nothing more than a teacher, a model, 
and a martyr, then believing in him as such is sufficient 3 but 
if the gospel represents him as something more, then such 
faith is essentially defective. Besides, believing in him as 
an inspired teacher, you are bound to believe in him as a sub- 
stitute for sinners and a sacrifice for sin; for if ever he 
affirmed any thing with clearness and emphasis, it was the 
vicarious character of his passion and death. You must be- 
lieve that he laid down his life for the sheep ; that he gave 
his life a ransom for many ; that he bore our sins in his own 



SALVATION CONDITIONAL. 281 

body on the tree ', that he redeemed us from the curse of the 
law, being made a curse for us ; that he was wounded for our 
transgressions; and bruised for our iniquities — that the chas- 
tisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we 
are healed ; that he is exalted to be a prince and a Saviour, 
to give repentance and remission of sins ; that there is no 
other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we 
must be saved ; that in him all fulness dwells — all fulness of 
grace and truth — all the fulness of the Godhead bodily — the 
fulness of Him that filleth all in all. All this you must be- 
lieve, for all this is written ; and if you believe it not, you 
have not the faith which the gospel requires in order to your 
salvation. 

''But why is faith made the condition of my salvation? 
Why not obedience in general, or some other particular vir- 
tue ? What is there in faith, to entitle it to such preemi- 
nence V 

I know not that you have any right to inquire. God has 
so ordained, and silent submission is the sinner's duty. As 
salvation is his gratuitous gift, it is his unquestionable pre- 
rogative to prescribe the terms. Let us adore his sovereign 
wisdom and goodness, in offering so invaluable a mercy on 
conditions of so gracious a character. Doubtless, however, 
there is a peculiar fitness in faith, abstractly considered, to be 
the condition of salvation. A little philosophy may develop 
that fitness. Consider, then, that faith is the vital principle 
of all acceptable obedience — the living fountain of all moral 
virtue. If the well is opened, the streams will flow. If the 
mainspring is touched, the whole machinery will be put in 
motion. If the root thrives, the foliage, the flower, and the 
fruit will follow. A man's faith controls his life. A Chris- 
tian faith is manifestly adapted to excite the warmest affec- 
tions and prompt the mightiest efforts. Its objects are such 
as, if they were present and visible, must have a powerful 



282 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

influence upon us; but they are present and visible — faith 
sees them, and grasps them — and they become as real and 
substantial as any of the sensible objects around us, and more 
influential in proportion to the perception of their vastly 
superior moment. Is not this the obvious meaning of the 
apostle, when he says — '^ Faith is the substance of things 
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen ?" This requisi- 
tion, therefore, is the most comprehensive that God could 
make. In requiring faith, he requires all obedience and 
virtue. Faith in Christ, especially, is the appropriation of 
his profi"ered grace — a firm reliance upon his ^^meritorious 
cross and passion " — a calm recumbency of the soul upon the 
arm that is " mighty to save.^' Thus it unites the penitent 
sinner to Christ — the medium of all Divine mercy; and in 
this fact, perhaps, more than in any other, consists the pecu- 
liar appropriateness of faith as the condition of our salvation. 
Faith in Christ, therefore, is enjoined as a special duty, and 
unbelief is rebuked as a special crime. " He that believeth 
on the Son hath everlasting life : he that believeth not the 
Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.'' 
Men are saved or lost, not because they obey or disobey the 
moral law, but because they believe or disbelieve on the Son 
of God. Faith is required as a duty ; but not as other du- 
ties. It is the great means of our union to the Light and Life 
of men. It has a peculiar connection with the agency of our 
salvation, and therefore a peculiar importance among the 
requisitions of the gospel. 

It is a remarkable fact, that while so much is said of faith 
as the condition of salvation, there is no particular analysis, 
explanation, or description of it in the word of God. The 
reason of this must be, that it is either unnecessary, inexpe- 
dient, or impossible. It is evident, at least, that saving faith 
can be comprehended only through consciousness — can be 
understood only by personal experience. In general, there- 



SALVATION CONDITIONAL. 283 

fore^ it is vain to attempt an explanation of it to those wlio 
are strangers to its exercise. Can you impart, by words, a 
clear idea of sight, to one who never saw — of sound, to one 
who never heard ? Faith is the act of a penitent soul : how 
can it be understood by the impenitent ? Faith is the act of 
one who feels his guilt, his misery, and utter helplessness : 
how can it be understood by one who knows nothing person- 
ally of such painful conviction ? Faith is a cordial assent to 
the gospel, a hearty approval of its plan, a joyful acceptance 
of its proffer, and an earnest reliance upon its promises : how 
can it be understood by one who is utterly void of spiritual 
perception, and incapable of appreciating in any degree the 
unspeakable gift of God ? A soul that has never believed in 
Christ, can no more comprehend faith in Christ, than a being 
that has never loved can comprehend love, or a being that 
has never hoped can comprehend hope, or a being that has 
never sorrowed can comprehend sorrow. The utmost we can 
do is faintly to illustrate by comparison — to make outward 
and familiar things the feeble exponents of an interior and 
spiritual act. 

Here is a man laboring and languishing under a dangerous 
disease. He applies to many physicians : none can help 
him : he is constantly growing worse. At length he hears 
of one possessed of wondrous skill, who has cured thousands 
of such cases, and never failed. He sends for him. The 
physician comes. With what mingled anxiety and joy does 
the patient look up and exclaim, "Doctor, I am at the 
very gate of death : I have confidence in your skill : I place 
myself in your hands : pity me — do pity me, and help me 
speedily !" This is faith. 

See that poor sailor, who has fallen into the sea. Long 
and manfully has he buffeted the waves. They are too 
strong for him. He is well-nigh exhausted. See ! he is 
sinking ! He rises again, and casts around him a look of 



284 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

intense despair. But there goes the life-boat. ^^ Shipmate, 
lay hold of my hand : fear not : I will save you I" 0. with 
what joyful eagerness, with what anxious confidence, he 
grasps the furnished help ! This is faith. 

Let us enter this prison. Look into this dungeon. Who 
is this, sitting in filth and darkness ? A man who, by 
extravagant and vicious living, has consumed his fortune, and 
involved himself in debt and misery. He has Iain here long, 
and sufi"ered much. The case is hopeless. He cannot extri- 
cate himself, and has forfeited the friendship and the confidence 
of all that knew him. But stand aside for this new-comer. 
He is a most generous and benevolent man. The prisoner 
has often injured him — has ever been his inveterate enemy. 
But his humanity and mercy are unparalleled and invincible. 
His compassion for the foolish ingrate prompts him to provide 
relief, and seek him in his dismal cell. ^' I have heard of 
your condition," says he, "and am come to release you: I 
have paid your debts, and here are the receipts, with money 
to begin the world anew." With a broken but rejoicing 
heart, he accepts the ofi"er, and is free ! This is faith. 

Behold, how different from that nominal faith — that histori- 
cal faith — that theoretical faith — that formal assent to the gos- 
pel record — that intellectual appreciation of the gospel mercy — 
which is so common even among impenitent and prayerless 
men ! Saving faith is a living faith — an acting faith — an appro- 
priating faith — a faith which lays hold of Christ, confides in 
Christ, adheres to Christ, as the only and sufficient Saviour. It 
is reliance upon his merit, as well as credence to his truth. 
Repudiating all other dependences and hopes, it clings to 
Christ as the drowning man to the plank — as the dying man 
to the physician — as the culprit to a powerful advocate. 

Know, then, I beseech you, wherein you are trusting ! 0, 
let it be something more than your own merits — better than 
your own works ! Take not your own sinful and deceitful 



SALVATION CONDITIONAL. 285 

heart for your spiritual guide ! Go to the living Word ! 
Eemember that such is your innate sinfulness, and such 
the crimson stains of your guilt, as to need the perpetual 
virtue of the atonement provided for all. Remember that 
Christ is the propitiation for your sins through faith in 
his blood — that no man cometh to the Father except by 
faith in the Son — that by him all that believe are justified 
freely from all things — that whosoever believeth in him, shall 
live a new life, and escape the second death. ^'Behold the 
Lamb of God V I point you to the one great sacrifice. 
" Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the 
world I" Come to Jesus, renouncing every other ground of 
hope — every other plea for mercy — except what his cross has 
furnished ! 

" Venture on him ! venture freely ! 
Let no other trust intrude ! 
None but Jesus — none but Jesus — 
Can do helpless sinners good!" 

Rest not, rest not, till all your unbelief is overcome — till 
you feel the last lingering doubt departing — till you can say, 
"Lord, I believe I help thou my unbelief!" — till you hear 
him answer, " Go in peace, thy faith hath saved thee V 



286 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 



XYII.— THE SONSHIP OF BELIEVERS. 

Proper views of the gospel salvation are immensely im- 
portant — proper views of its method, and proper views of its 
nature. An error in regard to either might peril our immor- 
tality. Both are clearly exhibited by that comprehensive 
statement of the Evangelist : — " But as many as received 
him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even 
to them that believe on his name ; which were born, not of 
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but 
of Grod/'* Let us analyze this scripture, and endeavor to 
devolop its doctrine. 

I. What, then, is the method of salvation ? What is the 
furnished account of it? To whom were the privileges of 
sonship granted? '^As many as received him/' Received 
whom ? The Messias — the Son of God — the Saviour of the 
world. In what character ? The character in which he came 
— in which he presented himself to men. They could not 
receive him in any other. Those who did not receive him in 
this, did not receive him at all. In what character, then, did 
become? Read the context: ^^ In the beginning'' — before 
a cherub moved his wing, or a seraph tuned his lyre — " was 
the Word'' — existed the Logos, who afterward became the 

* Jolm i. 12. 13. 



THE SONSHIP OF BELIEVERS. 287 

Messias, the Saviour; ''and tlie Word was with Grod'' — 
essentially, ineffably, and eternally united ; ''and the Word 
was God'' — not inferior, but equal — not another, but the 
same. " The same was in the beginning with God :" if in 
the beginning, he was uncreated — if uncreated, he was eter- 
nal — if eternal, he was God. "All things were made by 
him:'' he that made all things is God; if Christ made all 
things, Christ is God. "And without him was not any thing 
made that was made" — not a spiritual essence nor a material 
atom : he is the sole agent of universal creation. " In him 
was life" — life independent, underived, original, and eternal. 
"And the life was the light of men" — the source alike of 
vitality, intelligence, and spiritual illumination — "the true 
Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" 
— the Sun of righteousness, bringing life and immortality to 
light by his gospel. This is John's account of the Logos, 
who, he tells us, " was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full 
of grace and truth." Christ, then, is " God manifest in the 
flesh" — "the image of the invisible God" — that is, "the 
invisible God" made visible — "the unknown God" in per- 
sonal revelation. The apostle calls him " the brightness of 
the Father's glory, and the express image of his person." 
Now, to be the brightness of the glory of God, and the express 
image of the person of God, is, most unquestionably, to pos- 
sess the attributes of God ; and to possess the attributes of 
God is to be God. If Christ is the image and glory of God, 
he is eternal ; and he that is eternal must be God. If Christ 
is the image and glory of God, he is immutable ; and he that 
is immutable must be God. If Christ is the image and glory 
of God, he is omnipresent ; and he that is omnipresent must 
be God. If Christ is the image and glory of God, he is om- 
niscient ; and he that is omniscient must be God. If Christ 
is the image and glory of God, he is almighty; and he that 
is almighty must be God. Thus the apostolic statement is 



288 HEADLANDS OT FAITH. 

verified — " In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead 
bodily.'^ Thus the transcendent claims of Jesus are accre- 
dited : ^^I and my Father are one'^ — "I am in the Father, 
and the Father in me" — "He that hath seen me hath seen 
the Father.'^ Christ, then, must be received as God. If 
we receive him merely as man, or as angel, or as superior 
to both, but inferior to God, we do not receive the Christ of 
the gospel at all, but an imaginary being, very different from 
the Christ of the gospel. 

But what relation does he sustain to man ? What is the 
design of his advent ? What are the benefits of his mission ? 
Read again — the words are his own: — "God so loved the 
world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
lieveth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life ; 
for God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, 
but that the world through him might be saved." How? 
"As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must 
the Son of man be lifted up ; that whosoever believeth in him 
should not perish, but have eternal life." But how can his 
sufferings save the sinner ? He suffers as the sinner's substi- 
tute — a vicarious sacrifice for our sins. Hear him : — " I lay 
down my life for the sheep" — " The Son of man came not to 
be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ran- 
som for many." Was this what the prophets predicted of 
him ? Read Isaiah : — " He was wounded for our transgrres- 
sions, he was bruised for our iniquities : the chastisement of 
our peace was upon him ; and with his stripes we are healed : 
all we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every 
one to his own way ; and the Lord hath laid on him the ini- 
quity of us all." Do the apostles corroborate these represent- 
ations ? Hear Saint Paul : — " Christ was once offered to bear 
the sins of many" — hath " put away sin by the sacrifice of 
himself." Hear Saint Peter ; — " Christ hath once suffered 
for sins — the just for the unjust — that he might bring us to 



THE SONSHIP OF BELIEVERS. 289 

God." Christ must be received, then, as our voluntary sub- 
stitute — a vicarious sacrifice for our sins — the only and all- 
sufficient Saviour. If we receive him merely as an inspired 
teacher, an example, and a martyr, we receive him not in his 
most important character and relations ; and misapprehend- 
ing the chief object of his mission, we fail to secure its 
benefits. 

But what is it to receive Christ as a Saviour ? The text 
explains itself. To receive Christ is to believe on his name. 
But what is it to believe on his name? It is cordially to 
embrace the record which Grod hath given of his Son. Is it, 
then, simply to credit the statement that " God sent his Son 
to be the Saviour of the world" — that ^^ Christ Jesus came 
into the world to save sinners V It is this ; but it is more. 
To believe in Christ is so to credit his gospel as to trust in his 
merit and mediation alone for acceptance with God and eter- 
nal life. You may not rely upon your own morality, or 
religious performances, the virtue of sacraments, the interces- 
sion of saints, the intervention of priests, or any other sacri- 
fice than that of Calvary. There is but one saving name 
known in the universe — but one " Lamb of God that taketh 
away the sin of the world" — but " one mediator between God 
and man, the man Christ Jesus." 

There are in Scripture various metaphorical illustrations of 
faith in Christ. He is a door, and faith is entering by him. 
He is a way, and faith is walking in him. He is a treasure, 
and faith is seeking and finding him. He is a present, and 
faith is accepting him when offered. He is a fountain, and 
faith is drinking and washing. He is bread from heaven, 
and faith is taking and eating. He is the shepherd of the 
sheep, and faith is coming at his call. He is the captain of 
our salvation, and faith is enlisting under his banner. He is 
the lamb slain for our sins, and faith is sprinkling ourselves 
with his blood. He is our high-priest within the veil, 
13 



290 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

and faith is presenting our offering tlirougli him to the 
Father. He is a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert 
from the tempest ; and faith is flying to him for shelter, and 
hiding in the clefts of the rock. 

Faith, then, is not a mere assent of the mind to the truth 
concerning Christ; but a cordial acceptance and earnest 
appropriation of him, in his several offices of grace. There 
is a nominal, historical, theoretical faith — possessed by thou- 
sands — which has no more saving power than the faith of a 
Mohammedan or a pagan. It is a mere intellectual exercise, 
and originates with themselves. Saving faith is an exercise 
of the heart, and is " of the operation of God.'' And thus 
we see how faith is the condition of salvation. It is not 
because there is any moral value in faith, abstractly, more 
than in any other virtue. It is because faith unites the soul 
to Christ, the appointed medium of all Divine mercy. Faith 
is the appropriation of Christ and his salvation. A man is 
starving — food is offered him, he takes, and eats, and lives : 
it is not because there is any restoring power in the act itself, 
but because the act appropriates that which God has appointed 
for the preservation of life. A man is drowning — a plank is 
thrown him — he grasps it, and is saved : it is not because 
there is any virtue in the act abstractly, but because the act 
appropriates the only furnished means of deliverance. So 
faith has no merit, and is in itself no better than any other 
virtue ; but it allies the soul to infinite merit, and unites it 
to the source of all virtue. It is receiving the Saviour of the 
world. 

II. What follows ? Adoption, with all its precious immun- 
ities : regeneration, with all its incalculable blessings. Both 
are mentioned in the words of the evangelist : " To them 
gave he power to become the sons of God :" here is adop- 
tion. " Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of 



THE SONS HIP OF BELIEVERS. 291 

the flesli, nor of the will of man, but of God :" here is regene- 
ration. 

Angels are called the sons of God, because God is the 
author of their being, and because they bear his moral image. 
Adam was called the son of God, because he came imme- 
diately from his creative hand, and had no other father. 
Believers become sons of God by virtue of their union with 
the Only-Begotten of the Father. He has assumed their 
nature, and is not ashamed to call them brethren. Through 
faith we are accepted in the Beloved, and God rejoices over 
his adopted children. 

The son of a rich man walks out into the city. He finds a 
poor little boy weeping at the corner. He is ragged, and 
filthy, and starving. His father and mother are dead, and 
every friend has forsaken him. He is turned out to freeze 
or famish in the street. The generous youth pities him, ofi'ers 
him aid, leads him to his home, presents him to his father, 
and entreats relief for the little sufferer. The father loves 
that son, and for his sake embraces the little unfortunate, 
feeds him, clothes him, protects him, calls him his, gives him 
his own name, educates him with his own children, and 
bequeathes to him an equal share in his estate. 

Thus God deals with poor sinners. Christ finds us in a 
condition worse than orphanage — in sickness and poverty, 
disgrace and wretchedness extreme. We are aliens, enemies, 
and rebels; justly doomed, and hopelessly perishing. He 
undertakes our cause. He suffers to save us. God accepts 
him as our substitute. We embrace him, joyfully and trust- 
ingly, as our mediator. The Father, for his sake, raises us 
up from our low estate, makes us his sons and daughters, 
brings us into his family, refreshes us with the new wine of the 
kingdom, grants us access at all times to his presence, and we 
become heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. "As 



292 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

many as received hiiiij to tliem gave lie power'^ — the riglit, 
the privilege — " to become the sons of God.'' 

Is this all ? 0, no ! We are regenerated, as well as adopted. 
Believers are "born" to their lofty privilege. Whence? Of 
human origin ? By human descent ? Is it from Abraham ? 
Is it from Jacob ? Would this constitute them the sons of 
Grod? 0, no: it is "not of blood, nor of the will of the 
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.'' Hear Christ to 
Nicodemus : — " Except a man be born again, he cannot see 
the kingdom of God." What does this mean ? It is a mys- 
tery. The carnal mind cannot comprehend it. Human phi- 
losophy cannot trace the process. No logic can analyze it : 
no rhetoric can describe it. "The wind bloweth where it 
listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof; but canst not 
tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth : so is every 
one that is born of the Spirit." You see the effects : you feel 
the power; but the change is inexplicable, because it is 
Divine. There is an immediate operation of the Holy Spirit 
upon the heart. To awaken, enlighten, impel to duty, and 
attract to the cross of Christ, he uses the word, and other 
external means ; but the act of regeneration is a direct effort 
of the Divine power upon the soul. The Author of the first 
creation is also the Author of the second creation. He who 
made the world renews the heart. " We are his workman- 
ship, created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works." But 
what, precisely, is the nature of this spiritual renovation ? 

Is the substance of the soul changed ? No. That would 
destroy its identity, and the man would become another being. 

Is there any new faculty given ? No. That would render 
its subject a different species, and the regenerate man would 
be something more than man. 

Is there any new strength imparted ? No. The same con- 
stitutional vigor or feebleness, brilliancy or dulness, remains. 



THE SONSHIP or BELIEVERS. 293 

The mind is just what it was before ; but it acts more freely, 
and more correctly ; because it is delivered from the domina- 
tion of evil motives^ and the stern embargo which the heart 
laid on the intellect is removed. 

Is there any new revelation of truth ? No. It is the same, 
though it shines with a new radiance. The darkness of un- 
belief and prejudice are swept away. The mental vision is 
cleared. The law of God is seen in its holy and spiritual 
character. The gospel of Christ is seen in its moral beauty 
and perfection. The doctrine of atonement and mediation 
becomes the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salva- 
tion. The Saviour is " the chiefest among ten thousand, and 
altogether lovely ^^ — '^of God, made unto us wisdom, and 
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. ^^ 

Does this imply a freedom from temptation, and from all 
liability to sin ? By no means. Sinful thoughts may return, 
and sinful passions may awake again; and the world and 
Satan will ply the regenerate soul with all the apparatus of 
seduction and ruin ; and many a root of bitterness, that you 
deemed quite destroyed, will probably spring up and trouble 
you, and you will find that regeneration, instead of being a 
discharge from warfare, is only the commencement of the 
campaign. Is it not a regenerate man that Paul exhorts to 
^^ fight the good fight of faith ?'^ and is it not of regenerate 
souls he says — " We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but 
against principalities and powers — against wicked spirits in 
high places — the rulers of the darkness of this world V^ 

What, then, is regeneration ? It is a change of heart — a 
renewal and purification of the moral afi"ections. It is a new 
direction given to the thoughts and hopes and aims of life. 
It is a new vitality infused into the soul — a new creation in 
the image of God. The likeness is real, though the copy is 
greatly inferior to the original. We are " made partakers," 
saith the apostle, ^^of his holiness" — '^partakers of the Divine 



294 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

nature." More particularly, regeneration is a change in a 
man's moral taste, or relish, or principle of action — a change 
in his moral disposition, in his governing inclination, or pro- 
pensity. This is the basis of character; and where this is 
changed, a thorough change of character must follow. From 
the new heart results a new life. New objects are chosen, 
and new habits are formed. The fountain is cleansed, and 
sends out pure streams. A spiritual germ is implanted, which 
brings forth the fruits of righteousness. To all the affections 
a new direction is given, and to all the faculties a new exer- 
cise. ^^ Old things are passed away : behold, all things are 
become new." "What was formerly loved is now hated ; and 
what was formerly hated is now loved. God is loved — Grod 
in all his attributes — his holiness and justice, as well as his 
benevolence and mercy. His law is loved, his house, his ser- 
vice, and his children. The regenerate soul, once alienated 
from God, now finds it good to draw near to him ; and ex- 
claims with the Psalmist — "Whom have I in heaven but 
thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides 
thee." His motives, desires, affections, and tendencies, are 
all holy and heavenward, and all holy things become beauti- 
ful, and all holy beings attractive, and all holy exercises de- 
lightful ; and the heavens seem to glow with a diviner radi- 
ance, and the earth to bloom with a diviner loveliness, and all 
vocal nature to unite in hymns of worship. 

Thus, by a twofold mercy, believers in Christ " become the 
sons of God :" first, by adoption; and secondly, by regenc- 
ration: first, by a gracious change in their condition; and 
secondly, by a gracious change in their character. What is 
the result ? God loves them, delights in them, rejoices over 
them, and makes them partakers of his joy. But is there 
any thing peculiar in this ? Does not God love all his crea- 
tures alike ? True, he " is good to all, and his tender mercies 
are over all his works." There is not an insect that flutters 



THE SONS II IP OF BELIEVERS. 295 

in tlie breeze, nor a reptile that crawls in the dust, nor a flower 
that blooms, nor a leaf that falls, for which he does not care. 
He hears the cry of the raven, and hunts the prey for the 
lion. He makes his sun to rise, and his rain to fall, alike upon 
the evil and the good. All share his solicitude, and enjoy his 
bounty. But there is a vast difference. His love for sinners 
is a love of kindness and compassion : his love of saints is a 
love of approval and complacency. In the one case, it is the 
father pitying the alien and the outcast of his children; in 
the other, the same father, rejoicing over his obedient and 
happy family. ^' The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, 
and his ears are open to their cry.^' There is something pe- 
culiar in his regard for his people. It is the love of his own 
image in their souls. He keeps them as the apple of his eye. 
He guards them as the shepherd guards his flock. He stations 
his angels around them. He liberally supplies their needs. 
He turns evil into good for them. He makes the malice and 
persecution of their enemies the means of improving their 
virtues and insuring their salvation. Under the supervision 
of his gracious providence, every affliction becomes a blessing. 
Toil is the preparative for rest ; sufi"ering is the pledge of joy; 
poverty is the earnest of an imperishable inheritance; and the 
depression of their present state is to be succeeded by an 
eternal exaltation in the kingdom of heaven ! 

^' Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed 
upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.'^ How 
contemptible the glory of the greatest monarch that ever lived, 
compared with the privilege and dignity of the meanest mem- 
ber of this heavenly family ! 0, what a Father — how rich, 
how wise, how kind, how bountiful — has the humblest be- 
liever in Jesus ! What a fraternity of blessed souls — some 
anfallen, and some redeemed — await him in his everlasting 
home ! What honors are there — palms, crowns, thrones, and 



296 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

kingdoms such as earthly princes never ruled ! What know- 
ledge of God; and his glorious empire — of Christ, and his re- 
deeming love ! What personal beauty, what intellectual per- 
fection, what unmingled blessedness of being ! '^And there 
shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying/' And all 
the faculties of mind and body shall be attuned to their no- 
blest employments and sublimest joys ; and new sources of 
pleasure shall be springing up, inexhaustible and everlasting ; 
and the happy beings shall see God, and talk with Jesus, and 
sit with patriarchs and prophets, and walk with apostles and 
martyrs, and soar in light with the cherubim, and sing of love 
with the seraphim, and never tire of their occupation, nor 
weary of their home ! 

And now, who of my readers are sons of God ? The test 
is before you. You believe '^ that Christ Jesus came into the 
world to save sinners;" but do you receive him as your per- 
sonal Saviour ? Is your faith merely in the head, or is it also 
in the heart ? Is it merely an intellectual assent to the truth, 
or is it also a cordial acquiescence of the affections, and a 
hearty concurrence of the will ? Many profess religion, par- 
ticipate in the externals of devotion, contribute liberally to 
every good work of the Church, and seem to feel a deep in- 
terest in all that concerns her welfare ; but their Christianity 
is far from being a matter of personal experience — a reno- 
vation of the inner man. Is it possible that these are 
trusting in their own righteousness, and destitute of saving 
faith ? Is it possible that all their splendid virtues are less 
than " the fruit of the Spirit T' Dreadful doubt ! It hangs 
like a northern blast over the blossoms of spring ! The 
question, my friends, lies between yourselves and God. If 
you are sons, you have 'Hhe Spirit of adoption'' — you are 
*' led by the Spirit." Produce, now, your titles ! What 
evidence have you of your sonship? What proof can you 



THE SONSHIP OF BELIEVERS. 297 

furnish to the world ? Have you the indwelling testimony 
of the Spirit ? Do you follow the guidance of the Spirit ? 
** Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith \" And 
may God mercifully aid you in the process, and crown it 
with a happy issue ! 



13* 



298 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 



XVIII.— THE REJECTED REDEEMER. 

Prophecy is history forestalled. The spirit of the seer, 
like the eye of God, ranges through time, and beholds the 
end from the beginning. What the evangelical annalist re- 
cords, the evangehcal prophet anticipates. John says : ^^ He 
was in the world, and the world knew him not : he came unto 
his own, and his own received him not.^'* But more than 
seven hundred years before, Isaiah had said — as if the future 
were the present — as if the fact were actually before his eyes 
— as if the Messiah had already appeared, and the Jews had 
denied him, and the Romans had crucified him, and the great 
mass of human sinners had disallowed his claims and spurned 
his offers — ^^ He is despised and rejected of men."-j" 

But how incredible seems this announcement ! For ages 
he has been the desire of nations, and the expectation of the 
chosen people. For ages holy men have been foretelling 
his advent, portraying his character, describing his ministry 
and his miracles, singing the prelude of his coronation 
anthem, and chanting the triumphs of his everlasting king- 
dom. Now he comes, as he was predicted — of the seed of 
Abraham, as predicted — of the house of David, as predicted 
— of a virgin mother, as predicted — in the town of Bethle- 
hem, as predicted — with all the circumstances which were to 

* Joiin i. 10, 11. t Isa. liii. 3. 



THE REJECTED REDEEMER. 299 

attend liis coming. He comes, and the voice of heavenly 
minstrelsy awakes the sweet echoes of the Judean hills, and 
a meteor guides the magi to the new-born Star of Jacob. He 
comes, and '' the Spirit of the Highest" descends upon him 
like a dove, and a voice from out the sky startles the ear 
of thousands with the announcement — "■ This is my beloved 
Son, in whom I am well pleased !" He comes, and his life 
is all beauty, innocence, holiness, benevolence, without a pre- 
cedent and without a parallel; and the opened eyes of the 
blind, and the quickened ears of the deaf, and the loosened 
tongues of the dumb, and halting feet strengthened, and 
withered hands restored, and leprosy cleansed, and lunacy 
cured, and fevers rebuked, and demons banished from the 
living breast, and the dead starting to life from the bed, the 
bier, the tomb, all proclaim him ^Hhe Son of God with 
power.'' He calls disciples, and they are paragons of every 
virtue. He ordains apostles, and a thousand miracles attest 
their mission. He sends them to preach the gospel, and 
none of their enemies are able to resist the wisdom and the 
spirit with which they speak. A few poor, illiterate fisher- 
men, husbandmen, vine-dressers, tent-makers, tax-gatherers — 
men without any natural advantages or extraneous facilities — 
go forth to proclaim him the Messiah of the Jews, the 
Saviour of the Gentiles ; and lo ! their discourses transcend 
the sacred lore of the Sanhedrim, and baffle the philosophy 
of the Acropolis, and strike dumb the eloquence of the 
forum ; and thus prove their Divine endowment, and authen- 
ticate their claim to the ear and the heart of the world ! 

But with all this array of evidence — 0, strangest of all 
historic anomalies ! — men close their eyes, avert their ears, 
harden their hearts, and deny the Lord that bought them. 
Heaven pouring its music over his manger, hell yielding 
reluctant testimony to his power, and mute nature articulating 
her attestation of his Divinity, he is repudiated, persecuted, 



300 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

crucified. And though the frowning sky, the quaking 
earth, the cleaving rocks, the rending veil, and the waking to 
second life of " many of the saints that slept," proclaim to 
his murderers that they have killed the Prince of life, and 
force them to smite their breasts and say — " Truly, this man 
was the Son of God I" and though the resurrection angels, 
and the affrighted legionary guard, and the whole body of 
the disciples, declare that he is alive again ; and though the 
disciples adhere to their testimony unto the death, and 
spread the tidings everywhere, amid privations and peril, 
'^ the Lord also working with them, and confirming the word 
with signs following j" and though all that could be devised 
in heaven is done on earth to accredit the claims of Christian- 
ity, and commend its off"ers to the afi'ections and hopes of 
mankind ; yet — hear it, hear it, guilty world ! hear it, 
hear it, blood-redeemed immortals ! hear it, and wonder, 
and weep, ye ingrates for whom he descended, and sufiered, 
and died ! let it ring along the sapphire walls of heaven, and 
penetrate the profoundest gloom of hell ! — he who made the 
world, who loved the world, who pitied our helpless woe, and 
resigned the throne of the universe, and came to seek and to 
save that which was lost, and bore our sins in his own body 
on the tree, being made a curse for us — he — that embodiment 
of all goodness, that impersonation of all compassion, that 
incarnate miracle of love divine — ''He is despised and 
rejected of men \" 

We are apt to imagine that, if we had lived eighteen hun- 
dred years ago, and seen what the Jews then saw, and heard 
what the Grentiles theif* heard, we should have acted very 
differently — should have welcomed the world's Redeemer, 
and rejoiced in his redeeming love. Alas ! we know not our 
own hearts. Look around you ! look within you ! The 
same blindness of mind, perverseness of will, selfishness of 
motive, obduracy of feeling, and inveteracy of unbelief, yet 



THE REJECTED REDEEMER. 301 

characterize our fallen nature ; and still — no less than when 
he dwelt among us, full of grace and truth — no less than 
when his gospel was preached by apostolic ministers, and 
demonstrated by apostolic miracles — ''He is despised and 
rejected of men." 

But let us inquire what there was — first in the case of the 
Jews, and then in the case of the Gentiles — to prevent their 
reception of the gospel; and perhaps we shall cease to 
wonder, though we cannot justify. 

I. Among the causes which conspired to the rejection of 
Jesus by the Jews, the first place must undoubtedly be given 
to their enormous iDichedness. Who knows not the power of 
evil passions to blind the mind, and of evil practices to 
harden the heart ? Who knows not that men who love sin 
are ready to reject the most evident truths and embrace the 
most absurd opinions ? Who knows not that vice naturally 
tends to enfeeble the understanding and infatuate the judg- 
ment in relation to matters moral and religious ? Christ calls 
the Jews '■'■ an evil and adulterous generation. '^ He brands 
their leaders with hypocrisy, and accuses them of all manner 
of wickedness. You could scarcely expect a people to be 
better than their teachers. Josephus informs us of enormous 
villanies practiced by some of them, of which perhaps no 
pagan nation was ever guilty. He says there never was a 
race of men who so abounded in iniquity; and deems them 
worse even than the men of Sodom, or the generation 
destroyed by the deluge. No wonder, then, that they re- 
jected the teaching of Jesus. He who is totally corrupt in 
heart and understanding is incapable of discerning between 
truth and error — has no eyes to see, no ears to hear, that which 
relates to his own duty, or rebukes his own crimes ; though a 
thousand prophecies fulfilled, and a thousand miracles per- 
formed, attest the Divine character and mission of the teacher. 



302 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

The Jews stumbled at the origin of our Saviour. " We 
know this man, whence he is," said they ; ^^ but when Christ 
cometh, no man knoweth whence he is." They knew well 
enough that Christ was to be born in Bethlehem ; but they 
had a traditionary belief that he would hide himself for some 
time from the people, and afterwards reappear suddenly, no 
man knowing whence he came. But Jesus was well known 
to have lived about thirty years in Gralilee, and therefore they 
supposed he could not be the Messiah. They thought him to 
have been born there, and this was an insuperable barrier to 
his Messianic claims. " Shall Christ come out of Galilee ?" 
said they: ^^ Search and lookj for out of Galilee ariseth no 
prophet." If the statement were true, the deduction was not 
legitimate. The fact that no prophet had yet arisen out of 
Galilee was no argument against the possibility of such an 
occurrence. But it was not true. Jonah and Nahum were 
certainly Galileans, perhaps Malachi also. In his own coun- 
try, and among his own acquaintances, he met with a similar 
prejudice. They knew his person, his education, his manner 
of life, his laborious occupation, the poverty of his family, and 
the obscurity of his condition; and having long viewed him 
only as an equal, some of them as an inferior, they could not 
regard him now with the veneration due to a prophet; and 
though they were astonished at his wisdom and his mighty 
works, and wondered whence he derived his transcendent 
gifts, they could not receive him as the Messiah. '^ Is not 
this the carpenter's son V said the}'-. '^ Is not his mother 
called Mary ? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, 
and Judas? and his sisters, are they not all with us ? Whence, 
then, hath this man these things ? And they were offended 
at him." 

Tlie manner of Ms advent was offensive to the national 
pride. The Messiah whom they expected was to come as a 
prince and a conqueror. He was to save his people, subdue 



THE REJECTED REDEEMER. 303 

their enemies, and reign gloriously over a subject world. 
They confounded the predictions of his first and his second 
advents. That his first dominion on earth was to be a spiritual 
reign in the hearts of his people, and that the manifestation of 
his glorious personal sovereignty was to be reserved for his 
second coming, were things of which they had never dreamed; 
and when he came in poverty, humility, and suffering, they 
would not acknowledge him ; and his persecution and cruci- 
fixion confirmed their unbelief. But if some of the prophecies 
seemed to be unfulfilled in him, the fulfilment of so many 
others was sufficient to authenticate his claims, and the mira- 
cles which he wrought furnished abundant proof of his Divine 
commission. With a little more attention to the prophets, 
they would have found that he who was to save the Jews, and 
subdue the G-entiles, and wield the sceptre of universal empire, 
was also to be " a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" 
— to '^make his soul a sacrifice for sin," and be "cut off out 
of the land of the living;" and with a little more candor, and 
a little more faith, they might have seen in his subsequent 
resurrection, and his return to heaven, and the outpouring 
of his Spirit, and the triumphs of Christianity, an irresistible 
attestation to his Divinity. 

His doctrines loere unpopular. His teachings discredited 
their traditions, rebuked their customs, and belied their hopes. 
He taught a spiritual religion : they had made theirs a carnal. 
He exalted the moral law : they preferred the ceremonial. 
He required purity of heart : they gloried in outward cleans- 
ings. He spoke of the Mosaic ritual as a temporary institu- 
tion : they regarded it as everlasting. He enjoined humility 
and charity : they rejoiced in their national superiority, and 
looked upon the Gentiles as dogs. He condemned evil 
thoughts, as well as sinful actions : they said there was no 
harm in bad designs, unless they were put into execution. He 
promised eternal happiness to the good, and threatened the 



304 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

bad with eternal misery, without distinction of nation : they 
believed that no Israelite could be lost, except through apos- 
tasy, idolatry, or some other enormous crime. He gave them 
no hope of restoration to their former independence, pros- 
perity, and power : they cherished an ardent love of liberty, 
and were looking for such a deliverance and elevation as the 
nation had never known. He denounced their common prac- 
tice of divorce for slight causes, and of subsequent marriage, 
as no better than adultery : they had long been addicted to 
such abuses, and justified by their traditions what they could 
not justify by the law of Moses. He called his disciples to a 
life of suffering, and required of them what must have involved, 
in the case of every Jew, the sacrifice of all that was dear 
to him on earth, and made his nearest relations his bitterest 
enemies ; and surely, it needed no small virtue and resolution 
to forsake father and mother, brother and sister, wife and 
child, house and lands, to become the follower of a homeless 
and almost friendless master. In short, the Jews thought 
that the precepts of Jesus were too strict, and that no man 
could meet the requisitions of his severe morality ; therefore 
they despised him as a teacher, and rejected him as a leader. 
He was not in favor with the great. The priests, the 
scribes, and the Pharisees, did not believe on him. This de- 
terred the common people. They reasoned thus : ^^ Those who 
have made religion the study of their lives are certainly better 
judges in a religious controversy than we : they do not ac- 
knowledge this man as the Messiah ; why should we V It 
was bad logic. Notwithstanding their superior advantages, 
the priests, scribes, and Pharisees were, of all men, the least 
reliable judges in the case. They were exceedingly corrupt. 
They were blind leaders of the blind. They put light for 
darkness, and darkness for light. They called good evil, and 
evil good. By their false maxims and superstitious customs, 
they shut up the kingdom of heaven ; and neither entered 



THE REJECTED REDEEMER. 305 

themselves, nor suffered others to enter. If they were other- 
wise qualified for deciding on the validity or invalidity of our 
Saviour's claims, yet were they too far committed on the 
wrong side to render an impartial verdict. And who needed 
their opinion ? The matter was perfectly plain. Could not 
every man determine for himself whether Jesus were the 
Messiah? What was the evidence to be examined? The 
simple testimony of facts, which they had seen with their own 
eyes. Of these, the most unskilled and illiterate mind in 
Jerusalem was as good a judge as the greatest logician of the 
Sanhedrim, or the most learned doctor of the law. Here are 
the eyes of a blind man opened ; there is a paralytic instantly 
restored. Here is a leper cleansed ; there is a corpse revived. 
Did not every Jew know that no man could do such miracles 
except God were with him, and that God would never em- 
power an impostor to perform them in his name ? Yet they 
despised and rejected Jesus because he was despised and re- 
jected by the great men of the nation; and in doing so, like 
many in our own day who prefer authority to reason, they 
renounced their own judgment, and proclaimed themselves 
fools. 

Besides these common prejudices of the people, the priests j 
scribes, and Pharisees had other and peculiar motives for 
rejecting Christ. He had openly scorned their whitewash 
virtue. He had poured contempt on their affected sanctity. 
He condescended to speak and to eat with sinners. He 
wrought works of charity and mercy on the Sabbath. How 
could such a man be the Messiah ? His piety had not in it 
enough of austerity to suit them. It did not comport with 
their views of the dignity which he assumed. Therefore, 
when he claimed Divine honors, they were greatly shocked, 
and accused him of blasphemy. And had he not often re- 
proved them for their hypocrisy and corruption, their covet- 
ousness and extortion, their bigotry and uncharitableness, 



806 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

their supercilious contempt of others, their vain distinctions 
in the law, their zeal for the traditions of the elders, and their 
scrupulous regard for the utmost trivialities of religious cus- 
tom, while they neglected the weightier matters of morality 
and piety ? Had he not publicly denounced them as ^' blind 
guides'^ — " serpents" — a " generation of vipers T' On these 
accounts they were highly incensed against him ; and in the 
judgment which they formed of him, were governed by their 
passions more than their reason. And what was prompted by 
anger and resentment was seconded by self-interest and 
worldly policy. They had seen his miracles, and the disposi- 
tion of the multitude on several occasions to install him king. 
If he had been a deceiver, or an ambitious man, he might 
easily have enthroned himself in Jerusalem, and incited the 
Jews to rise against the Romans, and try to throw off their 
galling yoke. But what had the Jewish rulers to expect 
from such a measure ? In any event, nothing but disgrace 
and ruin. Unsuccessful, Rome would visit the attempt with 
a terrible vengeance — successful, the establishment of his 
authority would be the overthrow of theirs. They knew his 
opinion of them — his dislike of their vices ; and they dreaded 
his advancement to power. Supposing that the Messiah must 
be a king, they opposed him, persecuted him, and sought to 
destroy him. They succeeded in their endeavors. They 
" stirred up the people," intimidated the governor, procured 
the condemnation of their victim, and thought that by his 
crucifixion they had averted what they feared. But he arose 
again, and his disciples appeared openly at Jerusalem, pro- 
claiming the fact, and authenticating the proclamation by 
miracles. Could the Jewish authorities resist such evidence ? 
They did resist. Their worst apprehensions were awakened. 
They had been the chief agents in procuring the crucifixion 
of Jesus. What now, if the apostles were allowed to continue 
preaching his Messiahship? What if their doctrine were 



THE REJECTED REDEEMER. 307 

received, and multitudes converted to their faith? What 
would become of their authority ? What had they to appre- 
hend, hut the resentment of the masses ? The apostles must 
he stopped, or they are ruined. They are prohibited; but 
they continue preaching and performing miracles. They are 
called again before the council. ^' Did we not straitly charge 
you," saith the high-priest, " that ye should not teach in this 
name ? and behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doc- 
trine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us.'' Fresh 
miracles are performed to convince them. But when reason 
is controlled by prejudice and passion, all evidence is vain, 
and all demonstration is powerless. They allege that these 
wonderful works are mere impositions, or the productions of 
evil spirits. They persecute the apostles, everywhere, and 
wreak their vengeance upon their converts. They arraign 
them before the Roman magistrates ; accusing them of sedi- 
tion, and all sorts of crimes; and perjuring themselves to pro- 
cure the punishment of their inoffensive victims. They beat 
them in their synagogues — they imprison them — they banish 
them — they stone them. They take pains to send accusers 
from Jerusalem into all countries of their sojourn, to charge 
them with atheism, and make them everywhere as odious as 
possible. Thus the Master is persecuted in his disciples. 
Thus Jesus is "despised and rejected" by the Jews. 

II. Turn we now to the case of the G-entiles. 

They had many prejudices in common with the Jews, and 
some peculiar to themselves, which prevented them from 
receiving Christ as their Kedeemer. Among the former may 
be mentioned their corrupt morals, the influence of educa- 
tion, the purity of the gospel precepts, the trials incident to a 
profession of Christianity, the temporal advantages to be gained 
by rejecting and opposing it, the poor appearance which Jesus 
made in the world, the unpopularity of his doctrines, his 



308 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

rejection by the Jewish rulers^ his life of suffering, his igno- 
minious death, and the tribulations of his followers. These 
facts had the same effects upon the G-entiles as upon the Jews. 
But there were other causes for their rejecting the Son of 
God, which did not operate in the same manner upon the 
Jewish mind. 

The Jews knew something of the doctrine oi atonement for 
sin by vicarious sacrifice. It was revealed to them in their law, 
and kept continually before them in the daily offerings ; so that 
when the true nature of our Lord's sufferings and death was 
explained to them by the apostles, they had no difficulty in 
comprehending the theory; and but for the prejudices we 
have described, might have embraced him as their Saviour. 
With the Gentiles the case was different. If they had any 
notion of this doctrine, it was obscure and imperfect. They 
could not conceive how one who seemed hated and abandoned 
of God should restore men to the favor of God — how his suffer- 
ings could avail for the salvation of sinners. It was difficult 
to make them understand how he could be delivered for their 
offences and raised for their justification. It was exceedingly 
difficult to make them believe that a crucified person could 
possess any power to save. The doctrine, indeed, was a 
^^ stumbling-blocF' to the Jews ; but to the Gentiles it was 
" foolishness.'^ The whole system and apparatus of Chris- 
tianity appeared to them utterly contemptible. If Christ had 
come with royal pomp and martial array — if he had proposed 
to save mankind by his wisdom, authority, or military prowess — 
they would have been ready by the thousand to join his stand- 
ard ; but that he should propose to redeem the world by sub- 
mitting to poverty and contempt, by avoiding all earthly 
honors, by enduring the greatest indignities, and dying upon 
the malefactor's cross — that he should propose to spread a 
new religion through all nations by sending out a few obscure 
and illiterate men, with no art but that of plainly speaking 



THE REJECTED REDEEMER. 309 

the truth, and no arms but those of meekness and love — they 
deemed the utmost stupidity, insanity, infatuation of folly. 
How could they acknowledge such a leader? How could 
they embrace such a religion ? How could they become the 
disciples of Jesus the carpenter — Jesus the crucified; or 
submit to the teaching of Simon the fisherman, or Matthew 
the publican — men so much inferior in learning to their own 
philosophers, and in eloquence to their own orators ? 

The religion of the Jews, properly understood, only 'pre- 
pared the way for Christianity ; but the religions of the Gren- 
tiles were at all points opposed to its teachings. They be- 
lieved in many gods, with conflicting interests and inclinations 
— capricious, revengeful, swayed by evil passions, and all con- 
cerned in the government of the world. They supposed that 
the gods were far from desiring that all men should embrace 
the same doctrines, or practice the same rites; but were 
pleased with the variety of faith and worship which obtained 
in different countries; and required nothing more than tem- 
ples, and altars, and statues, and rich presents, and costly 
sacrifices, and consecrated personages, and hymns sung in 
their praise, and festivals kept to their honor; and this out- 
ward respect they called religion, and observed it chiefly for 
political ends, and thought it their duty to preserve inviolate 
as they received it from their ancestors; while virtue was 
something totally different, and not deemed necessary to 
please the gods ; and many of their sacred solemnities were 
quite incompatible with true virtue, consisting in sanguinary 
cruelties, and shameless impurities, and deeds too vile to name. 
Wedded to such a system, what availed with them the rea- 
soning of Paul, or the declamation of Apollos ? 

Besides, Christianity appeared to them to be a novel sys- 
tem, whereas paganism was venerable from its antiquity. 
They did not know that the principles of the gospel were as 
old as the world. How could they renounce their own reli- 



310 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

gionS; received from their ancestors, and cherished for ages, 
for one which they supposed to be but the birth of yester- 
day? 

Another objection they found in the plainness of the evan- 
gelical record, and the sionpUcity of the apostolical preaching. 
The literary taste of the age was a bad one. The purity and 
dignity of the Augustan period had passed away. Philosophy 
had degenerated into conceit, and eloquence had become in- 
flated and bombastic. The truth was despised because it was 
unadorned. Christianity was rejected because it claimed 
attention from its own merits, without the aid of meretricious 
ornament. The people demanded more of method and argu- 
mentation — more of learning and philosophy — more of fancy 
and vivacity — more of the elegant and classical — than they 
found in the discourses and writings of the first Christian 
teachers. 

They complained of the gospel, also, that it was unphiloso- 
jpMcal and unreasonahle ; demanding the unqualified sub- 
mission of the intellect, on the bare authority of its originator 
and publishers, without proper investigation or sufficient evi- 
dence. If the allegation had been true, and Christianity 
claimed to be only a human system, the objection would have 
been just, and unbelief would have been defensible. Chris- 
tianity, however, does not pretend to be a mere human sys- 
tem, but an authoritative revelation from God; yet do its 
doctrines and precepts in many instances appeal to man's 
loftiest faculty of reason, while heaven and earth and hell 
are laid under tribute for its demonstration. But such was 
the blindness of the G-entiles, that they could not see the 
rising sun, and the miracles which authenticated the gospel 
were blasphemously ascribed to magical art or infernal agency. 

Again, Christianity required of its disciples an open avowal 
of their faith. This to the Glentiles seemed exceedingly un- 
reasonable. They thought it of little consequence what reli- 



THE REJECTED REDEEMER. 311 

gion a man professed, provided he led a proper life ; and lield 
tliat the gods chose to be worshipped in various ways, accord- 
ing to the various opinions of men; and that every one 
ought, for the sake of the public peace and tranquillity, to 
conform to the religion established by the laws of his country. 
This seemed very liberal in comparison with Christianity, 
which rejected all gods but one, and condemned all other 
religions as impious and blasphemous, and required in its dis- 
ciples an unqualified repudiation of idolatry, and an open 
acknowledgment of their adherence to this exclusive system. 

They had no proper notion of the autlioriti/ of conscience 
in matters of religion, and could not understand the refusal 
of the Christians to comply with the religious requisitions of 
the countries in which they chanced to sojourn. They 
counted them inexcusably obstinate and perverse, when they 
would not sacrifice to idols; and no better than fools and 
madmen, when they would rather die than submit to the 
command of the magistrate. 

If Christianity succeeded, of course, it must put an end to 
the prevalent superstitions of paganism. But there were thou- 
sands — priests and sorcerers, artists and architects — who 
lived by these superstitions. Could they receive — could they 
even tolerate — a system which was likely to ruin their occu- 
pations and their prospects — to cut off their gains, and de- 
prive them of a support ? It was not to be thought of. The 
matter must be stopped, or they must suffer. Oracles are con- 
sulted, and the response is always a denunciation of Chris- 
tianity, encouraging the rejection of its doctrines, and prompt- 
ing the persecution of its teachers and its converts. 

The most powerful opposition to the gospel came from 
princes and emperors. They were superstitious and tyran- 
nical, capricious and cruel; and thousands of their subjects 
were deterred by fear from embracing ^^ the truth as it is in 
Jesus." Some of them were notorious for all kinds of wicked- 



312 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

ness. They assumed Divine honors^ indulged in blasphemy 
and debauchery, and could tolerate nothing that opposed their 
enormous vices. Under some of these — as Nero and Diocle- 
tian — the followers of Christ were treated with the utmost 
inhumanity. Sometimes they were opposed and persecuted 
even by emperors of less exceptionable morals — as Trajan, 
Titus Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius. They had their preju- 
dices and their superstitions. They were exceedingly tena- 
cious of the Roman religion. Policy urged them to discoun- 
tenance the introduction of a new system, which might 
possibly prove injurious to the state. Christianity was mis- 
represented : they formed a wrong estimate of it, and felt 
bound to oppose it as a monstrous and most dangerous thing. 

But the multitude among the Grentiles generally exhibited 
great indifference to religion. Their thoughts were all given 
to other matters. Riches and power, luxury and pleasure, 
philosophy and letters, poetry and eloquence, the fame of 
genius and the renown of arms, occupied all their time and 
care. Many of them were well convinced that the religions 
of the pagan world were nothing but tissues of fable and for- 
gery, inconsistency and absurdity ) and they concluded that 
Christianity was no better, and deserved not even an exam- 
ination. Therefore they took no pains to inquire into its 
claims, or ascertain its quality. Thus Gallio, when the Jews 
brought Paul before him, refused them a hearing; for he 
*' cared for none of these things.^' For the same reason, 
probably, Festus refused to hear the apostle, and told him 
that he was beside himself. And Paul's auditors at Athens, 
though they were men of learning and understanding, did not 
care to be informed on such a subject. They had more pride 
than knowledge, and more vanity than good sense. There- 
fore the claims of Christianity were disregarded, and its in- 
spired advocate was set at naught. 

But the great cause for the contempt cast upon the gospel, 



THE DOOM OP THE SINNER. 325 

the diiFerent nations and successive ages of the world — all the 
individual suffering, and all the social calamities, and all the 
national woes — and tell me how the Supreme Goodness can 
inflict such a frightful amount of misery upon his creatures, or 
even bear to see it endured. Why did he ever create a world 
which he foresaw would reek with blood and ring with wail- 
ing ? Yet these things exist, and exist by his appointment or 
permission, and therefore must be consistent with the good- 
ness of his nature and the benevolence of his government. 
And if now, why not hereafter ? If for six thousand years, 
why not for ever ? What Grod has done furnishes a presump- 
tion of what he will do; and as the guilty subjects of his 
empire have always suffered, it is probable that they always 
will. 

Perhaps the reason why you cannot reconcile the eternal 
torments of the wicked with the infinite goodness of Grod is 
because you do not understand the principles of the Divine 
administration — cannot comprehend its method, and the rela- 
tions and dependences of its several parts. You know that 
God is good ; but you see also that his goodness consists with 
human suffering. You know that he loves his creatures j but 
you see also that his love does not prevent his punishing the 
guilty. And for aught you can tell, the eternal punishment 
of the guilty may be necessary to the greatest glory of his 
goodness, and the general welfare of his creatures; and his 
regard for the happiness of the universe may be the grand 
motive for turning the wicked into hell, with all the nations 
that forget God. If it would contribute to the order and in- 
terest of moral being in general, so as to result on the whole 
in blessing to the creation of God, that benevolence which aims 
at the greatest good of the greatest number, and would diffuse 
blessedness over all the provinces of its illimitable empire, 
positively requires that " the soul that sinneth shall die." 
Could you comprehend all the glorious attributes of God ; all 



320 HEADLANDSOP FAITH. 

the intrinsic malignity and vileness of sin ; all the happiness 
which it aims and tends to destroy ; all the mischief which, 
uncontrolled; it would operate among intelligent beings ; all 
the influence of punishment, in restraining its rage, and check- 
ing its diffusion ; all the interest which God must feel in mil- 
lions on millions of worlds, which he has made, and still 
sustains and rules ; all his care to guard the purity and pro- 
mote the blessedness of their teeming myriads of rational and 
sinless beings ; and how justice and holiness blend with benevo- 
lence in his administration ; how every attribute harmonizes 
with every other in seeking the greatest good of his immortal 
subjects; in short, how infinite perfection must administer 
the affairs of an empire which is unlimited and everlasting — 
then, perhaps, you might see how even the goodness of God 
necessitates the eternal misery of the wicked. 

'^ But is not God our father ? and does it consist with the 
character of a father to torture his children for ever ?" 

If God is a father, he is not like earthly fathers. Ever 
since the beginning of the world, he has been doing what no 
human father could do. What father would drown his child- 
ren, as God did the former world ? What father would burn 
his children, as God did the population of the plain ? What 
father would bury his children alive, as God did Korah and 
his insurgent crew ? What father would torment his children 
with manifold pain and anguish, such as man has suffered 
ever since he came forth of the gates of Paradise? Now, 
these inflictions either consist with the character of God as a 
father, or they do not. If not, then God is not our father in 
the sense intended in the objection. If they do, then God, 
though a father, can afflict his human children for their diso- 
bedience. And if for a lifetime, why not for ever ? If for 
two hundred generations, why not to all eternity? 

God was the father of Adam. Did that relation prevent 
Adam from sinning and suffering? If not, why should it 



THE DOOM OF THE SINNER. 327 

unconditionally restore the whole race to holiness and happi- 
ness, after having maintained toward their Heavenly Father 
for so many ages an attitude of hostility and defiance ? God 
was the father of man as much before he ever sinned and suf- 
fered as he has been since ; and if that relation did not save 
him from sin and suffering, and does not save him now, what 
reason have you to expect such a result hereafter ? If his 
parental character permits your misery — if his parental hand 
inflicts misery upon you in this world, why not in that which 
is to come ? Will your misery be less consistent with his 
relation to you in eternity than it is in time ? 

The truth is this : All men are not, in a spiritual sense, the 
children of God. Sinners become the children of God by 
adoption. Adoption is taking another person's child, and 
making it one's own. You cannot adopt your own child. If 
all are God's children, he can never adopt any. Those whom 
he adopts were not his children before. Men are not by na- 
ture the children of God, but ^' the children of the wicked 
one." " He that is born of God doth not commit sin :" '' he 
that committeth sin is of the devil ;" and ^' in this the chil- 
dren of God are manifest, and the children of the devil." 
Gan men be at the same time the children of God and the 
children of the devil ? Can they sustain at once two opposite 
characters and relations ? What becomes, then, of your hope 
of future happiness, grounded on the fatherhood of God ? 
His promise of eternal life is made to his children : his chil- 
dren are those who do his will and bear his image ; and if you 
come not under this Divine designation, you are aliens and 
enemies, and have no right to the inheritance of the sons of 
God. To all the workers of iniquity, who presume upon the 
relation they sustain to God for final acceptance with him, the 
answer shall be : ^' Depart from me, for I know you not I" 
■ " But is not the Divine mercy too great to doom human de- 



328 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

linquents to endless torment ? and will not that mercy, after 
due punishment, admit them to everlasting blessedness ?" 

Before this question can be answered in the affirmative, it 
must be proved that the guilt of sin is not infinite, and there- 
fore the sinner does not deserve eternal punishment. This 
proposition, however, as we shall see hereafter, cannot be estab- 
lished. But, admitting it for the present, what has mercy to 
do with the release of the sinner, when he has suffered all 
that he deserves ? What is mercy ? The pardon of crime — 
the remission of penalty. But how can crime be pardoned, 
when it is punished ? How can penalty be remitted, when it 
is inflicted ? The two things are incompatible. If all men 
suffer to the extent of their demerits, the claims of the law 
are answered, justice demands their release, and mercy has 
nothing to do with their salvation. Can you cure the man 
who has already healed himself? Can you rescue him from 
drowning, who has, by his own exertions, already reached the 
shore? Can you sentence the felon to ten years' confinement 
in the penitentiary, and pardon him after the term of his pun- 
ishment is expired ? Can you hang the murderer by the neck 
till he is dead, and remit the penalty of the law after he is 
cut down from the gallows ? On this scheme, the sinner be- 
comes his own saviour, and is under no obligation to the Divine 
clemency. Properly speaking, indeed, there is no salvation 
in the case. Salvation is deliverance from deserved punish- 
ment. The sinner that is saved is not punished. The sinner 
that is punished is not saved. He cannot be both saved and 
punished. The conditions of the Divine mercy are " repent- 
ance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ'^ — 
not the endurance of punishment. You must perform the 
conditions, if you would realize the benefit. If unperformed 
in this world, are they likely to be performed in the next ? Is 
there any probability of reformation in eternity, for those who 



THE DOOM OF THE SINNER. 329 

have effectually resisted all the arguments and influences of 
grace brought to bear upon them in time? What follows, 
then, but the certainty of " the second death'' — the eternity 
of future torment ? 

^' But how can a few sins, committed during a short life, 
deserve an endless punishment ?'' 

It is not the number of sins, but the intrinsic evil of sin, 
that constitutes its desert of punishment. One violation of 
the law incurs the penalty as certainly as a thousand. *' He 
that keepeth the whole law, yet offendeth in one point, is 
guilty of all." This is a universal principle of government. 
You punish the culprit, not for all the evil deeds of his life, 
but for some single act of injustice or violence. One crime 
— the crime of a moment — may deprive a man of all that is 
dear to him on earth, and doom him to perpetual imprison- 
ment or an ignominious death. A solitary infraction of the 
law incurs the penalty, whatever that penalty may be. A sin- 
gle act of Adam subjected his posterity to an incalculable 
amount of suffering for many ages. One sin often involves 
the sinner in a life-long misery ; and one sin in this world may 
incur eternal anguish in the next. 

Again : The length of time employed in sinning has no- 
thing to do with the desert of sin. It is the motive of the act 
that constitutes its moral character, and exposes the agent to 
punishment. But suppose it were otherwise : suppose there 
must be some proportion between the duration of the punish- 
ment and the duration of the sin ; suppose the duration of 
the punishment were to be measured exactly by the duration 
of the sin : how would this relieve the case, or make any thing 
in favor of the limitation of future punishment? As long as 
a man sins, so long, at least, he deserves to suffer. If he sins 
as long as he lives, he deserves to suffer as long as he lives. 
If he sins a thousand years after death, he deserves to suffer 
a thousand years after death. If he sins for ever, he deserves 



6o[) HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

to suffer for ever. Now, what reason have you to believe the 
wicked will ever cease to sin ? Will their sufferings restrain 
and reform them in the world to come ? If they suffer in the 
world to come, their sufferings are penal, not corrective — can 
have no reformatory effect, and are intended for no such pur- 
pose. And does not sinning naturally strengthen the sinful 
passions, confirm the sinful habits, and constantly increase the 
difiiculty of a return to duty ? Is it likely that sinners, left 
to themselves, will ever become saints ? Will the companion- 
ship of all ^' the filthy and abominable'' aid the work of re- 
formation ? Is there any assurance — any intimation even — 
that God will interpose for their conversion in hell ? Will 
their so long continuance in rebellion against him entitle them 
to his pardoning favor and renewing grace ? Has he made 
any promise to change the hearts and reverse the doom of the 
damned ? If he leaves the wicked to their wickedness in the 
present life, what is to hinder their continuance in wicked- 
ness throughout the everlasting future ? Does the law make 
any provision, or the gospel contain any encouragement, re- 
specting the termination of their woe ? Is sin a mere dis- 
ease, and hell the hospital for its cure ? Does incorrigible 
crime cancel the obligation of the criminal ? Does the Bible 
afford any ground of hope that G od will ever bring the repro- 
bate up from the bottomless pit, or quench for them the lake 
that burneth ? If he intended such deliverance, would he 
leave us without the information ? Is there a solitary instance 
recorded in Scripture of the forgiveness and sanctification of 
a sinner in the other world, or the slightest and obscurest hint 
that such a case will ever occur ? On the contrary, we are 
taught that the future life will be a state of changeless retri- 
bution ; that an impassable gulf will be fixed between heaven 
and hell ; that repentance thenceforth will be hopeless, salva- 
tion impossible, and " mercy clean gone for ever.'' And since 
wickedness naturally tends to perpetuate and aggravate itself; 



THE DOOM OF THE SINNER. 331 

and since in hell there can be no corrective or restraining in- 
fluence, what is left us but the frightful inference that the 
victims of the eternal vengeance will be ever sinning — the 
amount of their guilt ever augmenting — ^the cup of their an- 
guish ever filling, and ever overflowing, and ever filling the 
faster the more it overflows ? 

"But how can finite beings contract infinite guilt? and 
what but infinite guilt can deserve endless punishment ?" 

The finite nature of man does not render him incapable of 
infinite guilt. The more insignificant he is, the greater the 
disparity between him and God; and the greater that dis- 
parity, the greater the guilt of disobedience. Let us make 
this plain : The guilt of an action consists in its being the 
violation of an obligation ; therefore the amount of guilt must 
be in proportion to the amount of obligation. If a child 
refuse to obey his playfellow, he contracts no guilt, for he 
violates no obligation. If he refuse to obey his father, he 
contracts an amount of guilt equal to his obligation to obey. 
If the father's claims were a thousand times greater, the 
guilt of disobedience would be a thousand times greater. 
What, then, must be the guilt of disobedience to God ? The 
measure of guilt incurred is the amount of obligation violated ; 
and your obligation to God, estimate it as you will, is infinite. 

Estimate it by the claims of the Lawgiver. God's claim 
upon your love is equal to his loveliness, and that is infinite. 
God's claim upon your homage is equal to his glory, and that 
is infinite. God's claim upon your service is equal to your 
dependence, and you depend upon him for all things. God's 
claims upon you, therefore, must be infinite. And if his 
claims are infinite, your obligations must be infinite, and the 
guilt of disobedience must be infinite, and its punishment 
endless. 

Estimate it by the value and importance of the law. The 
law is valuable and important in proportion to its beneficent 



332 HEADLANDS OP FAITH. 

aim and tendency. The aim and tendency of God^s law is 
to promote the endless welfare of the universe. This is an 
infinite benefit. Therefore the value and importance of the 
law must be infinite, and your obligation to obey it must be 
infinite, and the guilt of disobedience must be infinite, and its 
punishment endless. 

Estimate it by the tendency of disobedience to defeat the 
benevolent ends of the law. The manifest tendency of diso- 
bedience is to destroy peace of mind, ruin the noblest work 
of Grod, and render man utterly and for ever unhappy. It 
tends to total and universal selfishness, to total and universal 
contempt of God and his authority, to the overthrow of all 
government, and the destruction of all happiness. It spreads 
like a contagion, and establishes hell wherever it prevails. 
Disobedience, therefore, is an infinite evil — without correc- 
tion, will result in infinite mischief to the universe, and 
defeat all the benevolent ends of the law of God. It follows 
that the obligation to obedience is infinite, and the guilt of 
disobedience is infinite, and its punishment endless. 

In short, sin deserves eternal punishment, as truly as it 
deserves any punishment at all; and unless forgiven, must 
inevitably realize its desert. To deny the eternity of future 
punishment involves the same absurdities as to deny all pun- 
ishment; and the denial of all punishment is the acquittal 
of universal guilt, the Hcense of universal crime, and the 
sanction of universal anarchy. 

^^ But how can the gospel be glad tidings of great joy unto 
all people, if some shall be eternally lost ?" 

It is precisely the sinner's peril that makes the gospel pre- 
cious. No danger, what need of deliverance? No angry 
God, no wrath to come, what is there to be saved from? 
What sense or propriety in proposing to save men from that 
in which they are not involved, or to which they are not 
exposed ? Who would rejoice in such a proposal ? Go and 



THE DOOM OP THE SINNER. 333 

proclaim peace where discord was never known, and wlio will 
rejoice in the proclamation ? Go and proclaim liberty where 
freedom was never invaded, and who will rejoice in the pro- 
clamation? Go and proclaim health and plenty where disease 
and want were never experienced, and who will rejoice in the 
proclamation? Go and proclaim mercy where no mercy is 
needed : go and proclaim pardon where no punishment is 
impending ; go and proclaim deliverance where there is nothing 
to he delivered from ; and how can the proclamation awaken 
any interest, or excite any gladness ? But if you bring an 
announcement of acquittal and release to the criminal con- 
demned and incarcerated, you bring him what he shall value 
more than gems and gold — what shall fill his heart with 
inefi'able joy and rejoicing. 

The gospel is good news, because it comes to deliver men 
from the evil to which they are exposed — good news to all, 
because all are exposed to the evil from which it proposes to 
deliver. If it announces the wrath of God, it is to make his 
mercy welcome. If it reveals your danger, it is to prompt 
your escape. If it shows you hell, it is to urge you toward 
heaven. It is the peril that gives the proffered salvation its 
interest ; and the greater the peril, the greater the joyfulness 
of the message. 

Suppose a messenger should come from the national capi- 
tal, assemble all our citizens, and say to them : " Rejoice, ye 
people ! I bring you good tidings : Congress has not resolved 
to burn your city ; the president has issued no order for your 
destruction ; you shall all be saved. '^ Who would not call 
him a madman or a fool ? Who would thank him for the 
announcement of such a salvation ? How could it be joyful 
news to you — the assurance that you are not in danger of an 
evil which you never apprehended — which you always knew 
to be impossible ? And how can the gospel be joyful news, 
if the salvation which it announces is a salvation from 



334 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

nothing? How can it announce any salvation, if there is 
nothing to be saved from ? What need of mercy, if justice 
requires your exemption from punishment ? What room for 
mercy, if justice gives you a claim to immortal blessedness ? 
What possibility of mercy, if there is no penalty — no threat- 
ening — -no curse impending? 

The gospel offers you deliverance from death eternal. It is 
good news, because the doom is so dreadful, and the danger 
so imminent. Though all men should reject the overture, and 
perish in their sins, the failure of the mercy would not affect 
the nature of the message, nor mar its benevolent design. Nor 
does the fact that the gospel contains an announcement of the 
fatal consequences of its rejection detract at all from the 
graciousness of its character. The danger gives value and 
importance to the blessing, and the warning gives force and 
effect to the invitation. Such is Heaven's merciful design. 

A criminal is condemned to death. The government pro- 
poses pardon. An officer enters the cell and exclaims, ^'I 
bring you good tidings : here are the terms of your release; 
accept them, and you live; reject them, and you die." But 
does this last sentence detract from the joyfulness of the mes- 
sage? 

The cholera rages in your city. The dead are in every 
house. The streets are full of funeralprocessions. Business 
languishes. Sorrow and dismay pervade the community. An 
eminent physician arrives, with an infallible remedy, proclaim- 
ing, "I bring you joyful tidings : I am sent, by'the autho- 
rities of my own city, to your relief. I will save all who will 
submit to my treatment : the remedy is sure ; it has been 
tested a thousand times; but if you refuse my aid, alas for 
you ! you must perish," But does this last sentence detract 
from the joyfulness of the message ? 

All men are sinners. All are condemned to death eternal. 
The gospel offers' them salvation. The offer is universal and 



THE DOOM OP THE SINNER. 335 

impartial. If any reject its overtures, it leaves them still 
condemned, and justly enhances tlieir condemnation. But 
their condemnation does not mar the benevolence of the 
scheme. The gospel is good news, though all should despise 
its overtures. It is glad tidings of great joy, though all its 
rejecters must perish. 

'^But does not the Hebrew Sliebl and the Greek Hades, 
usually translated hell, properly mean the grave, or the state 
of departed souls V 

No matter what the original meaning of the words. The 
question is. How are they used in Holy Scripture ? What 
meaning was attached to them by Christ and his apostles ? 
This question is easily settled. We need not go to the 
lexicons. 

Take the account of the rich man in hell. Is this hell the 
grave? Then in the grave a man can see, and hear, and 
speak. Is it the state of departed souls ? Then in the state 
of departed souls there may be torment, and vain prayer for 
its alleviation ] and this is the terrible truth we aim to prove. 

Take this declaration of our Lord : ^' It is better for thee 
to enter into life halt or maimed, than, having two hands or 
two feet, to be cast into hell ; where the worm dieth not, and 
the fire is not quenched.'' Is this hell the grave ? Then in 
the grave there are an undying worm and an unquenchable fire. 
Is it the state of departed souls ? Then in the state of de- 
parted souls there are sufferings which justify these appalling 
metaphors; and we argue for nothing severer in the final 
doom of the ungodly. 

Take this warning to the apostles : '^ Fear him who, after 
he hath killed the body, hath power to destroy both soul and 
body in hell ', yea, I say unto you, fear him.'' Is this hell 
the grave ? Then in the grave both soul and body may be 
destroyed. Is it the state of departed souls ? Then in the 
state of departed souls the destruction is total, and the tor- 



836 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

ment is everlasting; and what more than this have the 
believers in future punishment ever urged ? 

It is very certain, therefore, that the words Shebl and 
Hades, as employed in the holy writings, mean something 
more than the grave, or the state of departed souls — even 
" the second death," the death eternal, the conscious ever- 
lasting woe of " the soul that sinneth." 

" But how can we credit a doctrine so terrific and over- 
whelming — a doctrine which shocks our sensibilities, and 
thrills the soul with horror?'' 

The question is not, whether the doctrine is gloomy and 
appalling ; but, whether it is taught in the word of God. If 
found in the Holy Scriptures, it is true, and must be believed ; 
however it may shock the feelings or stagger the imagination. 
I acknowledge it is terrific and overwhelming ; and so was 
the deluge ', and so was the fate of Sodom ', and so was the 
slaughter of the Egyptian first-born ; and so was the over- 
throw of Pharaoh and his host in the sea; and so was the 
sudden descent of Korah and his company into the devouring 
and avenging earth ; and so was the destruction of the seventy 
thousand Israelites, swept away by a single stroke of judg- 
ment; and so was the death of a hundred and eighty-five 
thousand Assyrians in one night, by the blast of an angel's 
breath ; and so was the wrath which came, in its manifold 
final infliction, upon the chosen people, when the day of their 
merciful visitation was ended ; and so was the overthrow of 
Nineveh and Babylon, with all their ancient pride and splen- 
dor, and the burial of Herculaneum and Pompeii in their 
fiery tombs ; — but the terribleness of the vengeance did not 
stay the avenging hand ! And the coming of the Son of Man 
will be terrible ; and the battle of Armageddon will be terri- 
ble ; and the final fall of Antichrist will be terrible ; and the 
conflagration of heaven and earth will be terrible ; and ter- 
rible, beyond all precedent or conception, the doom of undone 



i 



THE REJECTED REDEEMER. 313 

and that whicli influenced all other causes, was the desperate 
wickedness of the Gentile heart. We need not appeal, for 
proof, to the epistles of Saint Paul, and the testimony of the 
primitive Christians. The poets, orators, philosophers, and 
historians of those times have furnished sad descriptions or 
scandalous evidence of the extreme corruption and degeneracy 
of the pagan world. Wicked men are naturally opposed to a 
pure and holy religion, which reproves their vices, and requires 
their reformation. They hate the mirror that shows them 
their deformity. ''This is the condemnation, that light is 
come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than 
light, because their deeds were evil ; for every one that doeth 
evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his 
deeds should be reproved.^' 

Such were some of the causes which prevented the recep- 
tion of the gospel in its primitive promulgation. Unques- 
tionably, there were many, both among the Jews and among 
the Gentiles, who were rationally convinced of its truth and 
divinity, and more than half persuaded to embrace it openly, 
but had not the moral courage to meet the tribulations inci- 
dent to a profession of their faith. They were not willing to 
grieve or offend their friends, to forfeit their reputation or 
their estates, to peril their liberty and perhaps their lives, for 
the sake of the new religion ; and therefore they excused 
themselves from confessing Christ before men, and stood 
aloof from the companionship of his disciples. 

And is not Jesus still a despised and rejected Saviour? 
We speak not of the heathen world. Are there not many — 
even in this Christian country — many who frequent our 
churches, and appear to respect our devotions — who are yet 
'' the enemies of the cross of Christ V Some — thank God ! 
the number is comparatively small — are avowedly hostile to 
Christianity. Others, while they profess faith in the gospel, 
14 



314 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

deny some of its most important doctrines. They believe in 
a redeemer; but lie is not the Messiah of the prophets, nor 
the Christ of the apostles; neither the "Mighty God/' nor 
the " sacrifice for sin.'' They trust in an imaginary Saviour, 
while the real Saviour is "despised and rejected." And what 
say you of those who remain grossly ignorant of Christianity, 
while the}^ are favored with such ample facilities for knowing 
the truth — who wilfully close their eyes against the light, and 
grope in darkness "amid the blaze of gospel day?" And 
what of those who imagine themselves Christians because 
they are not downright infidels — who receive the gospel in 
theory, but deny it in practice, and allow it no controlling 
influence over the heart and life ? And what of those who 
deny their native depravity, and the consequent necessity of 
regeneration : who say, "I am rich, and increased with goods, 
and have need of nothing;" and know not that they are 
" wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked :" 
who despise the Physician, and reject the remedy, because 
they are ignorant of the depth and inveteracy of their dis- 
ease? And what of those who, like Demas, neglect the 
gospel, " having loved this present world :" who, like the 
rich young ruler, sorrowfully forsake the Saviour, because 
they cannot forego the enjoyment of their wealth : who, like 
the guests in the parable of the marriage supper, make light 
of the invitation, and go their several ways, " one to his farm, 
and another to his merchandise?" And what of those who, 
though they intend not finally to " neglect the great salva- 
tion," yet postpone their attention to it for the present, under 
the fatal delusion that there will be sufficient time and favor- 
able opportunity for the work ; and so continually defer the 
duty, 

" till wisdom is pushed out of life, 

And to the mercy of a moment leave 
The vast concerns of an eternal scene!" 



THE REJECTED REDEEMER. 315 

JfLte not all these guilty of the crime alleged? And (^, 
what ingratitude, to despise their best friend, and reject the 
greatest gift of God ! *' Many good works/^ said Jesus to 
the Jews, "have I showed you from my Father; for which 
of these do ye stone me?^' ''Many good works" — many un- 
speakable mercies — mercies which elicited the wonder of 
angels, and drew them singing from the skies — mercies which 
shall one day make heaven and earth vocal with anthems of 
adoring rapture — 0, sinful men, has he showed to you ! For 
which of these do ye despise and reject him ? Is it because 
he loved you when you were his enemies — pitied you when 
there was no arm to save, and hasted from ''the shining 
courts above'' to visit your dreary dungeon of a world, and 
assumed your dishonored and suffering nature, and bore your 
sins in his own body on the tree ? Is it because he so loved 
you, that he could not leave you to perish without a remedy, 
whatever that remedy might cost; because he consented to 
endure the chastisement of your peace, wounded for your 
transgressions, bruised for your iniquities, made a curse in 
your stead, pouring out his soul unto death ? Is it because 
he hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to 
light by his gospel ; because he pursued your last enemy into 
his last entrenchment, and hurled, vanquished and stingless, 
from his throne of skulls, the tyrant through fear of whom 
you have been all your lifetime subject to bondage; because 
he rose, the first-fruits of an immortal harvest, from the fields 
of death, and ascended on high to lead your way to the many 
mansions of his Father's house, where he now sits as your 
intercessor, and whence he shall return to receive his disciples 
to himself? Is it for this, blessed Jesus, thou art "de- 
spised and rejected of men ?" Surely, it is not that he never 
loved them ; not that he has done too little for them ; not 
that there is any thing wrong, or even any thing defective, in 
the gospel; not that there is one valid objection to the evan- 



316 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

gelical record, or one argument of infidelity that has not been 
a thousand times triumphantly refuted ; not that Christianity 
is useless, or unimportant, or can safely be neglected, or 
comes not with all the sanctions of three worlds to enforce its 
claims upon the human heart. It is the desperate wickedness 
of that heart which blinds men to their true interests, and 
drives them headlong upon ruin. It is the obduracy and 
perverseness — the invincible love of self and sin — which arms 
them with contempt of God, and makes them scorn the prof- 
fers of his mercy, and rouses all their fallen passions in 
rebellion against his holiness, his wisdom, and his truth. 
that ye would give over the controversy, and be reconciled to 
God! 

*' See, the suffering God appears ! 
Jesus weeps : believe his tears ! 
Mingled with his blood, they cry, 
Why will ye for ever die !" 



THE DOOM OF THE SINNER. 317 



XIX.— THE DOOM OF THE SINNER. 

I HAVE been astonished to hear it said, by those who deny 
the doctrine of the future everlasting punishment of the 
wicked, that it is not revealed in the Old Hebrew Scriptui'es. 
I think it would be easy to show, that if the Old Testament 
reveals no future hell, it reveals no future heaven — that if it 
reveals no everlasting punishment, it reveals no everlasting 
reward. It is as clear, copious, and emphatic in relation to 
the former as in relation to the latter. Moses and the pro- 
phets speak as often of the Divine wrath as of the Divine 
love — as often of the Divine vengeance as of the Divine 
mercy ; and I hazard nothing in pledging myself to produce 
text for text, statement for statement, for every promise a 
threat, for every blessing a curse. What mean the com- 
minations of the Hebrew Scriptures ? Are they mere empty 
words, or oriental exaggerations ? Are they less pregnant of 
significance than their accompanying benedictions ? 

I know it is often said that the calamities threatened are 
temporal calamities — that the destruction foretold is the de- 
struction of the body. But suppose we admit the interpreta- 
tion, and concede to its authors all that they desire: what 
then ? If God is angry with the wicked in time, what shall 
change his feelings toward them in eternity ? If he hates 
them in this world, what shall make him love them in the 
next ? If in his wrath he destroys them from the earth, how 
is that wrath ever afterward to be appeased ? If they die in 



318 HEADLANDS OE FAITH. 

their sinS; how are they ever afterward to be purged or par- 
doned ? If their sinfulness remains for ever, must it not ren- 
der them for ever miserable and hopeless ? Can the guilty and 
polluted be happy ? If God drives them out of this world in 
his anger, whither does he drive them? Out of conscious 
existence, into cold inanity ? To suppose this were equally 
unphilosophical and unscriptural. Whither, then, does he 
drive them ? To the heaven of the holy ? To the companion- 
ship of the blessed ? Who, then, would not covet such pun- 
ishment ? Who would not pray for such vengeance ? Ah, 
no : it is from the scene of hope to the land of despair. It is 
from earth to hell ! 

I am willing to rest the whole argument upon the single 
text: ^^The soul that sinneth it shall die."* Here is the 
penalty of the law. What death is intended ? It must be 
natural death, or spiritual death, or eternal death. There is 
no other. 

Is it natural death ? If natural death is the penalty of 
God's law, then there is no forgiveness, for all are punished. 
If natural death is the penalty of God's law, then the right- 
eous are punished as well as the wicked, for all men die. If 
natural death is the penalty of God's law, then infants and 
animals are treated with as much severity as the most aban- 
doned criminals, for there is no exemption. If natural death 
is the penalty of God's law, then the penalty is no adequate 
expression of the importance of the precept, and sustains no 
proportion to the guilt of transgression ; nay, it is an incal- 
culable blessing ; for, according to this hypothesis, it releases 
the soul from suffering, and introduces it into paradise. The 
death intended, therefore, cannot be natural death. 

Is it spiritual death ? Spiritual death is sin — a sinful state 
— a sinful habit. To make spiritual death the punishment of 
sin, were to make the penalty identical with the transgression — 

* Ezekiel xviii. 20. 



THE DOOM OF THE SINNER. 319 

sin tlie punisliment of sin — spiritual death the punishment 
of spiritual death. To make spiritual death the penalty of 
Grod's law, were to make God the author of sin, for God ap- 
points and executes the penalty. If spiritual death is the 
death intended, then God threatens the dead with death, and 
threatens them with death for being dead. The death, there- 
fore, cannot be spiritual death. 

And if neither natural nor spiritual death, it must be eter- 
nal death. What is eternal death ? Annihilation ? That 
were contrary to a thousand scriptures. The word of God 
treats copiously of the future conscious existence of the 
wicked. They are to be judged after death, and after death 
rewarded according to their works. They are to be cast 
into a furnace of fire, where shall be weeping and gnashing 
of teeth. This is quite incompatible with annihilation. There 
is no more ground for believing that the wicked will be annihi- 
lated, than for believing that the righteous will be annihilated. 
The death with which the sinner is threatened can be nothing 
else than a state of endless misery — the endless privation of 
good, and the endless infliction of evil. 

As the soul is the natural life of the body, so God is the 
spiritual life of the soul. As the body lives by its union with 
the soul, so the soul lives by its union with God. As the dis- 
union in the former case is the death of the body, so the dis- 
union in the latter case is the death of the soul. A conscious 
and rational existence may remain, with an utter and ever- 
lasting estrangement from God, an utter and everlasting pri- 
vation of his favor, an utter and everlasting exclusion from 
his kingdom. Even now sinners are " alienated from the life 
of God,'' and practically ''without God in the world;" and 
this state perpetuated, and rendered entirely hopeless, and 
aggravated by penal inflictions inconceivably dreadful, must 
constitute the essence of death eternal. It is a conscious im- 
mortality without a God — a conscious immortality under the 



320 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

curse of God — an eternal abandonment to agony, and infamy, 
and despair. 

" But if not at death, may not the wicked be annihilated 
after they shall have received a punishment proportionate to 
their guilt?'' 

Let Saint Paul answer: ^'Who shall be punished with 
everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and 
from the glory of his power.'' Now the destruction is the 
punishment ; therefore it cannot mean annihilation, for anni- 
hilation is no punishment. Punishment implies pain; but 
there is no pain in annihilation. It is the negation of being, 
and incompatible with pain. That which does not exist, can- 
not suffer. 

Again : If the wicked are punished first, and annihilated 
afterward, how can the annihilation be the punishment ? In 
that case, their everlasting destruction is an everlasting deliver- 
ance from pain — an everlasting impossibility of pain; and, 
instead of reading as it does, the text should read thus : — 
^^ Who shall be saved from punishment by everlasting destruc- 
tion from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his 
power." 

Annihilated after having received a punishment proportion- 
ate to their guilt ? But who shall determine the amount of 
their guilt? Who shall say how long a punishment they 
deserve ? To do this, one must be competent to form a cor- 
rect estimate of sin, in its intrinsic character, and in all its 
relations and influences. " He must know the relation of sin 
to the soul, and the whole of those immortal interests which 
it tends to destroy. He must know the relation of sin to God, 
and how vast an evil it is to feel and act out enmity to so 
great, and good, and glorious a lawgiver and ruler. He must 
know the relation of sin to a world and a universe of intelli- 
gent creatures, and its aim and tendency to propagate its own 
pollution among them, and spread disorder and ruin far and 



THE DOOM OF THE SINNER. 321 

wide. All this, and more, must any one know, before he can 
be considered competent to form a right judgment of the 
whole demerit of sin. For, surely, the demerit of sin must 
be in proportion to its own intrinsic evil, and its natural aim 
and tendency to sully the glorious perfections of God, and 
destroy the blessedness of immortal souls. And the punish- 
ment which it requires must be correspondent with this 
intrinsic malignity of sin, and must be sujQ&cient to counteract 
its deleterious bearing upon the moral creation, and in the 
end to turn it from a ruinous to a beneficial result.^'* Who, 
then, among men or angels, who but God himself, can weigh 
the guilt of sin — can measure the desert of sin — so as to be 
able to determine the appropriate amount or duration of its 
punishment? For aught you know, your sins may demand 
millions on millions of ages in woe — may demand an eternity 
of intense, unutterable torment ! 

^' But does not the destruction threatened relate to the sin 
rather than the sinner?'^ 

No : the destruction is threatened as a punishment for sin ; 
but the destruction of sin would be a salvation from sin, instead 
of a punishment for sin ; and to say that God has threatened 
the sinner with the destruction of his sin, were to say that he 
has threatened him with a blessing ; and the execution of the 
threat were no vengeance, but an unspeakable mercy. 

Again : ^^ Sin is the transgression of the law.^' Sin is an 
act. How can you punish an act, except in the agent ? My 
neighbor threatens my life : will you acquit the man, and 
incarcerate the threat, or require it to give bonds for good 
behavior ? A riot occurs in your city : will you dismiss the 
rioters, and fine, whip, or imprison the riot ? A man is con- 
victed of larceny, or burglary, or forgery, or perjury, or big- 
amy, or murder : will you abstract the crime from the criminal, 

* Rev. Dr. Woods. 
14* 



322 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

and order tlie latter released, but send the former to the peni- 
tentiary, or banish it from the country, or brand it on the 
brow, or hang it by the neck ? And if the act cannot 
be separated from the agent for punishment in the present 
life, how will it be possible in the life to come ? 

We invariably understand the penalty of human law to be 
levelled against the person of the offender, not against the 
abstract offence — against the thief, not the theft — against the 
murderer, not the murder. Why should we apply a different 
method of interpretation to the law of God ? What saith the 
text already cited ? ^' The soul that sinneth'^ — not the sin — 
'^ shall die;'^ and to prevent the possibility of mistake, and 
give special emphasis to the application, the subject of the 
punishment is repeated in the pronoun : — ^' The soul that 
sinneth, it shall die." 

*^ But is not all just punishment disciplinary in its charac- 
ter, and benevolent in its end ? Is it not intended for the 
reformation or improvement of the punished ? And if so, 
how can it be interminable V 

Punishment must not be confounded with discipline. Pun- 
ishment is inflicted for the support of law, for the preservation 
of order, for the protection of innocence, for the security of 
the public. Why do you confine the felon, or shoot the 
traitor, or hang the assassin ? To mend his morals and save 
his soul ? or to prevent his doing further mischief, and deter 
others from similar crimes ? 

So in the government of God. Why were the inhabitants 
of the former world swept away by the deluge ? for their own 
salvation, or for the warning of future generations? Why 
were the people of Sodom and G-omorrah destroyed by fire 
from heaven ? for their immediate translation to paradise, or 
for an example to them who should afterward live ungodly ? 
Why were the ancient chosen people of God plucked up from 
the land of Palestine, and scattered as by a whirlwind over 



THE DOOM OF THE SINNER. 323 

the nations ? to teacli them the things which belonged to their 
peace, or to punish their obstinate rejection of the Son of 
God? 

^^ What is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and 
lose his own soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange for 
his soul ?" — is the irredeemable loss of the soul a means of 
salvation ? " Fear him who, after he hath killed the body, 
hath power to destroy both soul and body in hell :" — is the 
destruction of soul and body in hell the way to reform the 
sinner ? " If I whet my glittering sword, and my hand take 
hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to my enemieS; 
and will reward them that hate me :" — is this a father's ten- 
der chastisement of his children ? ^' There remaineth no more 
sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking-for of judgment, 
and of fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries :" 
— is this a description of God's gracious parental discipline ? 
"The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his 
mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that 
know not God and obey not the gospel :" — is this the merci- 
ful method by which Heaven reforms the rebel and recalls the 
alien ? 

It is not true, then, that reformation — improvement — is 
the only legitimate end of punishment, or any end at all of 
punishment. As men may justly be punished through life, 
for the support of government, and the benefit of society, so, 
for the vindication of the Divine rule, and the moral good of 
the universe, sinners may justly be punished throughout an 
immortal existence. 

" But how can these views be reconciled with the revealed 
goodness of God, and the acknowledged benevolence of his 
administration V 

Is the punishment of guilt, then, incompatible with good- 
ness ? Does the incarceration or execution of the highway- 
man or the incendiary argue a want of benevolence in the 



324 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

magistrate ? Must the prince, in order to sustain his charac- 
ter as a good ruler, suffer all the rogues, and villains, and des- 
peradoes of his realm to go ^^unwhipped of justice?^' "Who 
does not see that such indulgence to the guilty would be un- 
just and injurious to the innocent, and therefore inconsistent 
with a wise benevolence in the administration of law ? 

You think God is too good to punish you hereafter — to punish 
you for ever. So reasoned, perhaps, the ungodly in the days of 
Noah : ^^ Grod is too good to drown the world ; he pities, and 
will spare; his tender mercies are over all his works ;'^ — but 
" the flood came, and swept them all away/' So reasoned, 
perhaps, the children of Lot and their profligate neighbors : 
^' Grod is too good to destroy the city; he is not angry; he is 
a compassionate father; he loves us notwithstanding our sins;'' 
— but Sodom was ''set forth for an example, suffering the 
vengeance of eternal fire." So reasoned, perhaps, the impeni- 
tent Jews, to whom Jesus preached the day of vengeance : 
'• God is too good to forsake his chosen people ; we have had 
a long experience of his mercies; he will not abandon the 
beloved city, and cast us off for ever ;" — but the " wrath came 
upon them to the uttermost," and for sixty generations the 
queenly Jerusalem has been desolate. So may it fare with 
our modern despisers of eternal retribution. Such their rea- 
soning, such may be their fate. 

You think the goodness of God will prevent your future and 
endless misery. Why has it not prevented your past and 
present misery ? Is not the argument as good in the one case 
as the other ? Why does the goodness of God permit so much 
suffering in the present world ? Why are cities visited with fire, 
and flood, and earthquake, and pestilence, and various devasta- 
tion ? Why rings the earth with ''lamentation, and mourning, 
and woe V How can you reconcile with infinite benevolence 
" the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to ?" Collect in 
your imagination all the evil that men have ever endured, in 



THE DOOM OP THE SINNER. 337 

humanity ; — but wlio shall presume to make its terribleness a 
bar to its infliction, or an argument against its probability — 
with all the amazing facts of history before him, and all the 
comminations of Holy Scripture ringing in his ears — the dis- 
mal knell of reprobate and ruined souls ! 

I admit that it is shocking to human sensibility; but 
human sensibility is no rule of the Divine administration — no 
fit standard by which to determine the punishment of guilt. 
Human sensibility is not a safe guide even in domestic gov- 
ernment; and the father is often obliged to sacrifice the 
tender emotions of his heart to a painful parental duty. 
Human sensibility is equally unreliable in the administration 
of civil and judicial affairs ; and if the prince or magistrate 
should yield all to sympathy, justice would be prostrated, 
crime would triumph over law, and all the bonds of society 
would shortly be dissolved. How, then, can a government 
of mere feeling consist with the welfare of God's great moral 
empire ? 

Human feeling is very imperfect; exceedingly limited in 
its views and aims ; regards only the well-being of particular 
individuals, communities, or classes ; and is therefore incapable 
of any suitable action in relation to the general and perma- 
nent good of a kingdom, comprehending uncounted worlds, 
and destined to endure for ever. 0, shall poor, blind, erring, 
partial, depraved, perverted human feeling arrogate to itself 
supreme authority, and sit in judgment on the righteous 
judgments of God, and impiously undertake to revise or 
repeal the penalty which Heaven has affixed to his eternal 
law! 

Even God himself seems not to be governed by feeling in 
the execution of law. He takes no pleasure in the death of 
those he dooms. He punishes because he must — ^because it 
is necessary to the support of his throne, and the security of 
his loyal and happy subjects. He bewails the fate of the 
15 



338 HEADLANDS OT FAITH. 

rebellious people, upon whom he is pouring out his judgments. 
He mourns over incorrigible Ephraim, whom he is about to 
abandon to his miserable fate. He weeps with human tears 
over the anticipated doom of Jerusalem, which his own 
inflexible justice has decreed. He hurls his thunder with a 
backward hand and an averted face. He takes vengeance 
upon his foes with a pitying sigh. But compassion cannot 
carry it over holiness, and justice, and truth. The incurred 
penalty must be inflicted : the threatened wrath must come. 
The terribleness of the work makes nothing against its right- 
eousness, nor even against its benevolence; and though it 
send a tremor through all the worlds of God — bear witness, 
heaven — it shall be done ! 

If the feelings of the universal Lord do not control the 
measures of his moral government, how can our poor sympa- 
thies decide what is proper in his dealings with irredeemable 
delinquents ? If his infinite goodness interposes no barrier 
to the severest penal inflictions, how shall the blind and erring 
compassion of sinful worms dare to object to his judgments 
upon incorrigible crime ? The taintless purity of the seraph 
were incapable of determining how, and to what extent, God 
shall punish the transgressor; and the soaring intellect of the 
cherub were guilty of a damnable temerity to undertake the 
task! Hell may complain with its myriads of tormented 
tongues, and curse the rigors of the justice which it cannot 
comprehend ; but heaven, with choral anthems, as the voice 
of many waters, shall laud the manifest equity of the eternal 
retribution ; and let not the puling sentiment of earth pre- 
sume to dissent from the decision ! 

With all candid inquirers, the question must be allowed to 
rest upon the simple word of God. The passages are very 
numerous, both in the Old Testament and in the New, in 
which the doctrine is taught, either by explicit statement or 
by obvious implication. They are clear, and copious, and 



THE DOOM OF THE SINNER. 339 

f ery definite, and laden with terrible emphasis. If unsophis- 
ticated common sense does not find in them the doctrine of 
an endless and hopeless damnation, I know not what colloca- 
tion of words could possibly express such an idea. This is 
the meaning which all reasonable and sincere men, without 
explanation, actually gather from them. To make them 
teach any thing else, a figurative and mystical signification 
must be substituted for the natural and literal. Those who 
advocate the opposite doctrine are not willing to submit them 
to popular interpretation without an environment of notes, and 
comments, and verbal criticisms, and philological disquisitions, 
and various learned mystifications. Hell everywhere flames 
along the pages of revelation; and if unseen, it is by those 
who fear to see ! 

If there is no future everlasting punishment of the wicked, 
there is no future everlasting reward for the righteous ; for 
the Bible is equally copious and emphatic in relation to both, 
and speaks in the same terms and epithets of the duration of 
each. If there is no future everlasting punishment of the 
wicked, there is no future everlasting existence of the human 
soul; for the same modes of expression are applied to the 
former as are used to denote the latter. If there is no future 
everlasting punishment of the wicked, there is no certainty 
that Christ is immortal, and his kingdom imperishable; for 
the Scriptures speak as often and as emphatically of the inter- 
minable pains of hell, as of the interminable dominion of the 
Messiah. If there is no future everlasting punishment of the 
wicked, for aught that we can gather from revelation, God 
himself is not eternal ; for the same eternity in the future is 
ascribed to the life of the Deity and the torments of the 
damned. If there is no future everlasting punishment of the 
wicked, the Holy Ghost has spoken in a manner fatally adapted 
to mislead the human mind on a subject of the utmost import- 
ance; and Moses and the prophets, Jesus and his apostles. 



340 HEADLANDS OF FAITH. 

could scarcely have preached and written more delusively, had 
such been their studious and incessant aim ! 

Those who deny the doctrine cannot escape these conclu- 
sions. They evidently feel, as one of their champions honestly 
admits, that the Scripture testimony upon the subject ^' is 
formidably strong/' Therefore they resort constantly to the 
most questionable expedients, and adopt the most absurd 
methods of interpretation. It is found necessary to distort 
and pervert much of the word of God. The well-established 
meaning of terms must be rejected. Many passages must be 
expunged as interpolations. Others must be explained to 
mean what no one would ever have thought of, but from the 
desire of sustaining a favorite theory. And for what ? To 
prove that God is not just ; that he does not reward mankind 
according to their works ; that there is no difference between 
him that serveth the Lord, and him that serveth him not; 
that to pray or to blaspheme, to be a Judas or a John, is all 
the same, as far as it concerns our final and eternal state. And 
why do they wish to prove what is so dishonorable to God and 
his moral government? To quiet an annoying conscience, 
that they may sin without remorse ? I judge no man ; but 
indications are certainly unfavorable. The tendency of the 
doctrine is evil : is not its origin also evil ? Its abettors are 
generally corrupt and vicious. There may be exceptions ; but 
they are rare. Generally, if not invariably, the heart is more 
at fault than the head. Men blind their reason, and stupefy 
their conscience, that they may believe a lie, and justify their 
deeds by their faith. It is a fearful thing ! If there is a 
hell, your unbelief cannot quench its flame. If there is wrath 
to come, your skepticism cannot avert its advent. Your wilful 
doubts may render you indifferent to the threatenings of the 
Bible, but cannot falsify them — may harden your hearts, but 
cannot save your souls. Beware, lest you practice upon 
yourself a fatal deception ! Think not to sin with impunity ! 



THE DOOM OF THE SINNER. 341 

Presume not upon the mercy which you spurn I " Give glory 
to the Lord your Grod, before he cause darkness, and before 
your feet stumble upon the dark mountains ; and while ye 
look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make 
it gross darkness V' 



THE END. 



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